The St John Passion, a glorious choral work by Johann Sebastian Bach, was composed just over 300 years ago and first performed in St Nicholas Church, Leipzig, at the Vespers service on Good Friday in 1724. This was during Bach’s first year as director of music in Leipzig, where he remained for the next 27 years.

One of the greatest and most powerful musical works ever written, it was described by Robert Schumann as ‘more daring, forceful and dramatic’ than Bach’s St Matthew Passion, written three years later. Two magnificent extended choruses at the beginning and end frame the four elements of the work: speech rhythm narration, the ferocious and taut ‘crowd’ choruses, operatic-style arias, and Lutheran chorale melodies exquisitely harmonised by Bach.

There is layer upon layer of musical imagery: searing dissonances over a raised pulse, rapid dice rolling semiquavers, a crown of thorns “pricking” on a lute and rainbow melodic contours for Christ’s scourged back looking “like a rainbow appearing as a heavenly blessing”. Bach’s pacing and almost infinite inflection of the words is judged to perfection and the work of course ends positively as we are ultimately faced with “boundless joy”.

Under the baton of our conductor, Duncan Saunderson, we shall be singing the excellent and very accessible English version of the text, in the New Novello edition. The orchestral accompaniment for the concert will be, as for several of the choir’s previous performances, by Instruments of Time and Truth.  It will be a great experience for audience and singers.

Some personal reflections from Duncan:

“Bach’s St John Passion would be towards the top of my desert island discs and I have known it for over forty years, having sung it in the chorus at the Guildhall School of Music in 1982. Around then I even sang an alto aria to James Bowman!

Then came the many performances in New College Chapel with the choir, and a performance on the South Bank with Sir Mark Elder. The English choral tradition being (still) one of our greatest exports, this meant performances across Australia, including two in the Sydney Opera House, then in San Francisco, and Spain, where I was honoured to play the part of Pilate with the Hilliard Ensemble taking the other roles.

I am greatly looking forward to immersing myself with SCS in the work from September to February next year and can wholeheartedly recommend it as an absolute ‘must sing’. I can’t think of a finer orchestra to sing it with than Instruments of Time and Truth who know and love the music intimately.”