J.S. Bach’s St. Mark Passion will be presented in Toronto on March 29, Good Friday — only the second time the work has been performed in Canada. The performance takes place at the Metropolitan United Church downtown.
The music for Bach’s St. Mark Passion, BMV 247, first performed on March 23, 1731 (Good Friday), has been lost to time. The libretto, however, by German poet Christian Friedrich Henrici, survived in a book of poetry, and provides the blueprint to reconstructing the work.
The Met Choir and Baroque Orchestra are joined by soloists tenor Philippe Gagné as Evangelist, and baritone Clarence Frazer as Jesus. Minister of Music Jonathan Oldengarm will direct, and play continuo. He will also give a pre-concert talk prior to the performance.
Reconstructing Markus Passion
The version that will be performed is a reconstruction by Dutch harpsichordist/pianist/composer Robert Koolstra. Published in 2017, it is probably the most well known version of the St. Mark’s Passion, and has been performed in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and North America.
Koolstra specialized in Early Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and performs in Europe, Asia and North America as the continuo player with a number of different ensembles. He is a solo recitalist on both the organ and the harpsichord.
The Evidence
In 1754, Musikalische Bibliothek, a kind of baroque music magazine, published an obituary of J.S. Bach. Bach had died in 1750, and it’s speculated that the short biography had been written by Carl Philip Emanuel, and Bach’s former pupil Johann Friedrich Agricola.
That obituary describes Bach’s five passions, of which only St. Matthew and St. John have survived intact to the present day. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the idea of reconstruction began to take hold. The full libretto was preserved by Henrici, writing under the name Picander, in a book of his collected works published in 1732. He also noted that his Passion had been performed at St. Thomas’ in Leipzig on Good Friday 1731, conducted by J.S. himself.
A second version of the libretto, apparently performed on Good Friday on 1744, was discovered in St. Petersburg in 2009. It includes two extra arias not present in the original version, while leaving out one of the chorales. It’s that version which Koolstra used in his own reconstruction.
Parody
A parody in musicology is a piece where the composer has revisited one of his earlier works, incorporating and reworking them into a new piece. It was a common practice in the 18th century.
The funeral music of 1727 for the Electress Christiane Eberhardine von Brandenburg Bayreuth, called Trauerode, (Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahl, BMV 198), corresponds to the structure of St. Mark’s Passion, and an old catalogue mentions the instrumentation, and opening chorus for an anonymous version of the passion, which just happens to correspond to Picander’s opening text.
Other passages seem to quote from the two arias from Widerstehe doch der Sünde, BWV 54, and two choruses from the St Mark Passion may have been reused in the later Christmas Oratorio.
From these and other clues found in his research, Koolstra came up with his reconstructed St. Mark’s. His full score can be downloaded [HERE].
The Soloists
Canadian/Korean baritone Clarence Frazer is an alumnus of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, and Calgary Opera’s McPhee Artist Development Program. This season, his schedule includes performances with Vancouver Opera, Orchestre classique de Montréal, and Symphony Nova Scotia.
Philippe Gagné specializes in Baroque repertoire, and has performed with ensembles all over the world, including Tafelmusik, Les Violons du Roy, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain, Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Ensemble Caprice, and many more.
- More information about the concert [HERE]. Find in-person tickets [HERE] and livestream tickets [HERE].
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