For Holy Week 2006, The Bach Society will offer the most ambitious undertaking in its history: Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. The Bach Choir and Orchestra, under the direction of Christfried Brödel (Dresden), will be joined by soloists Melissa Givens, Robyn Reso, Daniel Buchanan, and Timothy Jones, as well as the Houston Boychoir. The words of Jesus will be sung by Matthias Weichert (Dresden) and those of the Evangelist by Randolph Lacy.
Introduction
to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion
by Dr. Robert Lynn, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus and musicological
advisor to the Bach Society
Thursday,
April 6 • 7:30 p.m.
Music Suite
Christ the King Lutheran Church
Johann Sebastian
Bach
St. Matthew Passion
Palm Sunday, April 9 •
5:00 p.m.
Tuesday, April 11 • 7:30 p.m.
Good Friday, April 14 • 3:00 p.m.
Bach Choir and
Orchestra
Christfried Brödel, guest conductor
The King’s Banner interviews Bach Society Music Director Albert LeDoux:
What made you choose the St. Matthew Passion?
We’ve had such success with the St. John, Bach’s other big passion setting, that we thought the time was right to do the St. Matthew, which is the only major Bach work the Society has never done.
Major work is right! Do we have enough room for all those performers?
eople think of the St. Matthew as being huge. It’s an idea that goes back to Mendelssohn’s revival of the piece in the nineteenth century with hundreds of performers, and a lot of modern performances are stuck in that tradition. But we know now that Bach wrote with very modest resources in mind, with only a few voices and instruments per part, and we’ve taken that as our model for this production. Of course, we still need about eighty performers.
So you don’t consider it a “monumental” work as it’s often described?
h, definitely! But its “monumentality” comes from its expressiveness, spiritual impact on the listener, and its length but not from the size of the ensemble. There are big, hair-raising movements for chorus and orchestra, but there are many more intimate moments for just one voice and a few instruments.
Did that affect your choice of soloists?
I wouldn’t have even planned to do the St. Matthew without a first-rate cast of soloists, since so much is dependent on them. The aria soloists—Melissa Givens, Robyn Reso, Daniel Buchanan, and Timothy Jones—are excellent early-music soloists who happen to live in Houston. Randolph Lacy, now on the faculty of the University of California in Fresno, will sing the role of the Evangelist. And Matthias Weichert, who has sung the role of Jesus in so many important performances in Germany and internationally, is coming to Houston from Dresden just for this production.
And the guest conductor is also from Dresden?
Christfried Brödel is the rector of the Conservatory for Sacred Music in Dresden, where he is professor of choral conducting; He’s also the music director of the Meissner Cantorei, a regional choir specializing in contemporary music. His credentials as a Bach specialist include not only the usual German and western European countries, but also Rumania, the Ukraine, and South Africa, where he has appeared for both the Neue Bach Gesellschaft and the Bachakademie Stuttgart. It will be his first appearance in the United States, and the ensemble is very excited about meeting him.
How long have you been in rehearsal?
he choirs have been at work since the end of February, meeting several times a week. There are about forty singers divided between two choirs, and they’ve been very highly motivated, the rehearsals have been a lot of fun. This is a great work for the choral singers to sink their teeth into! The orchestra will rehearse very intensely the week before the production.
No admission charge?
ow can the Bach Society afford it? That’s right, three performances and no admission charge; the Society’s Board of Directors considered it especially important that the Holy Week Passion production should remain a gift to the community, something we can point to with pride. It will cost us about $45,000. We’ve done some extra fundraising especially for this event as we did with the St. John in 2005, and we are confident that people will respond with the same generosity.
Any suggestions for the first-time hearer?
Dr. Robert Lynn, our musicologist and professor emeritus at University of Houston, will offer an introduction to the St. Matthew Passion on April 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the music suite (basement room 001). I’d recommend it very highly to anyone wanting to know more about Bach’s passion setting; he’s an interesting speaker and this is one of his particular areas of expertise.