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ST JOHN PASSION INTRODUCTION BY BOB CHILCOTT way. The texts they sing are English poems from the 13th to the early 17th centuries that BOB CHILCOTT (b. 1955) My setting of the Passion is an hour-long work express deeply human responses to death, to telling the story of Christ’s Passion using the life, and to man’s relationship with the world text from St John’s Gospel. It was written specially and with God. Two of these meditations are sung PART I PART III for Matthew Owens and the Choir of Wells by the choir with soprano solo, the last of 1 Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle [2.09] w Jesus is crucified [5.45] Cathedral and first performed on Palm Sunday which expresses most poignantly the human 2 e The Garden [5.25] Hymn: There is a green hill far away [2.37] 24 March, 2013, during an act of worship. response to seeing Christ crucified on the cross. 3 Hymn: It is a thing most wonderful [2.13] r The Crucifixion [5.23] 4 Peter’s denial [5.49] t Jesus, my leman [4.54] As in the great Passion settings by J.S. Bach, I have also set five well-known Passiontide 5 Miserere, my Maker [5.58] y Jesus dies on the cross [2.33] the story is narrated by a tenor Evangelist. I hymn texts (It is a thing most wonderful; Jesus, 6 Hymn: Drop, drop slow tears [1.32] u When I survey the wondrous cross [3.19] have designed the narrative to be sung in an grant me this, I pray; Drop, drop slow tears; There arioso style that gains momentum as the drama is a green hill far away and When I survey the Total timing: [67.46] PART II unfolds. The solo roles in the narrative have wondrous cross) and these hymns are designed 7 The Judgement Hall (I) [2.54] instruments from the ensemble that are to be sung by the choir and congregation together. 8 Hymn: Jesu, grant me this, I pray [2.20] identified with the respective roles – the Evangelist is accompanied by viola and cello I was fortunate as a singer to sing the Evangelist 9 Christ, my Beloved [4.14] solo, Pilate by two trumpets, and Jesus by role in both the great Passions of Bach a number 0 The Judgement Hall (II) [6.18] horn, trombone, tuba, and organ. of times. I also remember as a boy chorister in q Away vain world [4.22] King’s College, Cambridge singing the simpler The role of the choir within the narrative is to renaissance versions of the Passion chanted play the part of the crowd or of soldiers who by the Dean and Chaplain of the Chapel in WELLS CATHEDRAL CHOIR CHACONNE BRASS comment from time to time in short outbursts. Holy Week. It is the austerity, the agony and VIOLA Wells catherdal oratorio society and MATTHEW SOUTER The larger role that the choir has to play is the ultimately the grace of this story that has CELLO wells cathedral voluntary choir RICHARD MAY (Tracks 3, 6, 8, 13 and 17) NICK BARON TIMPANI singing of four meditations that punctuate inspired me to write this piece, to be performed organ various points of the drama. I have tried in for the first time in a magnificent building LAURIE ASHWORTH SOPRANO JONATHAN VAUGHN conductor ED LYON TENOR / EVANGELIST MATTHEW OWENS these meditations to emulate the style of a where this same story has been commemorated DARREN JEFFERY BASS-BARITONE / PILATE NEAL DAVIES BASS / CHRIST strophic carol in the mould of a writer such as for almost a thousand years. Thomas Ravenscroft, cast in a simple, melodic Bob Chilcott www.signumrecords.com - 3 - ST JOHN PASSION the eternal round of mankind’s inhumanity. first performed by them on Palm Sunday in declamatory delivery. Chilcott harvested his four The image of the cross set up in every slum 2013. The composer recalls approaching the meditations from late-medieval and renaissance Soldiers fighting in Flanders a century ago resonates with Bob Chilcott’s St John Passion, commission with a mixture of excitement and sources, gathering in lyrics tinged with often held thoughts of Christ’s Passion. Geoffrey a work propelled by the dramatic force of the apprehension, daunted by the towering presence personal responses to Christ’s death, from the Studdert Kennedy, a chaplain to the British gospel narrative yet not overwhelmed by it. of Bach’s St John Passion and mindful of despair of the anonymous ‘Miserere, my Maker’ armed forces, known to countless Tommies as His score contains space for reflection, places more recent works by Arvo Pärt and James and resignation of William Baldwin’s ‘Christ, ‘Woodbine Willie’, gave voice to the experience of retreat from the baying of the mob and the MacMillan. “I had a similar feeling when I was my Beloved’ to the conflicted sentiments of of extreme suffering and the countervailing stark realisation of what the poet R.S. Thomas asked to write a Requiem,” he recalls. “There Alexander Montgomerie’s ‘Away vain world’ and power of divine compassion in his post-war called ‘omnipotence’s limits’. Chilcott seeks are such incredible models to look up to, which mystical beauty of ‘Jesus, my Leman’. writings. In one piece he recalled ‘running and finds the human, the all too human, in the of course made me nervous. With the St John to our lines half mad with fright’ during the Passion story. The composer invites listeners Passion, you’re taking on something deeply “Poets of this period, it seems to me, began Battle of Messines in June 1917. He stumbled to consider the moral choices taken by Peter, rooted in western music and also deeply rooted to articulate the human dimension of religion,” over the corpse of a young German soldier. ‘I Caiaphas, Pilate, the chief priests and the in Christian theology.” comments Chilcott. “Montgomerie writes about remember muttering, “You poor little devil, soldiers at the cross and, over the course of being unwilling to quit the world and its what had you got to do with it? Not much of the four carefully positioned Meditations, to turn Chilcott’s creative process took time to unfold. pleasures, even though he finds a way out great blonde Prussian about you.” Then there towards texts which he describes as expressions Like Bach, he decided to assign details of the in his love for Christ. He’s not ready to let came light. […] It seemed to me that the of ‘deeply human responses to death, to life, Passion to a solo tenor, an Evangelist, who go of what he knows on earth and that’s boy disappeared and in his place there lay the and to man’s relationship with the world and narrates the action of St John’s Gospel. “I felt something with which I can identify. It’s Christ upon his cross…. From that moment with God’. Chilcott’s freshly minted settings the Evangelist’s lyrical, human quality would that idea of being human, which is also on I never saw a battle as anything but a crucifix. of five Passiontide hymns open doors to best be complemented by the sounds of viola there in the language of ‘Jesus, my Leman’ – From that moment on I have never seen the Easter’s redemptive, liberating message, and cello, while brass instruments seemed right ‘Jesus, my love’. Many of us, myself included, world as anything but a crucifix. I see the cross through which the promise of salvation to support the power of the chorus, which often struggle with thoughts about faith and set up in every slum, in every filthy overcrowded stands beyond and above the desolate scene takes part directly in the drama as the crowd.” belief. I grew up in the church as a chorister quarter… I see [Christ] staring up at me from at Calvary. Above all the composer’s personal response and have been so involved ever since with the pages of the newspaper that tells of a to the Passion story, its earthly pain and sacred music, which is why I think a lot tortured, lost, bewildered world.’ The St John Passion belongs to the extending spiritual grace, grew out of his choice of texts. about the role music might play in one’s line of Bob Chilcott’s large-scale choral The gospel narrative is delivered in the own spiritual journey.” Studdert Kennedy’s powerful prose, like the pieces. The work was created for Matthew vital language of the King James Bible, its symbols of the Passion story itself, is rooted in Owens and the Choir of Wells Cathedral and winged words harnessed to the Evangelist’s - 4 - - 5 - The ethos and aesthetics of Bob Chilcott’s set out by the Evangelist in arioso style, set-piece in which Peter’s rock-like loyalty the closing section’s harmonic language with St John Passion are closely linked. Its language, begins in ‘The Garden’. We hear echoes of is tested and broken while Jesus remains chromatic inflections and tantalising glimpses like the writings of Woodbine Willie, speaks material from the opening chorus, dispelled fearless under attack. Its anxiety and dispiriting of the major mode long before its final arrival. to the many, open to but not exclusively by the tenor soloist’s agitated account of conclusion colour the expressive landscape for contemporary music devotees. The work’s Judas’ arrival with a band of armed men of Chilcott’s first meditation, ‘Miserere, my ‘Jesus, grant me this, I pray’ owns all the musical values are motivated above all by from the chief priests and Pharisees.

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