The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-03-28
PASSION MU SIC
THE MELODY OF THE PASSION
SUNG DURING HOLY WEEK
GOES BACK TO REMOTE AN
TIQUITY.


TIQUITY.
From the earliest times it has been
the custom to sing as part OF the
ritual of Holy Week the biblical mar
rative of the Passion of Our Lord,
writes F. W. Goodrich in the Catholic
Sentinel of Portland, Oregon. At that
time the Holy Scriptures had not been
translated into the vernacular, and
there can be no doubt that the Church
took this means of bringing the story
more wildly to the mass of the peo-
pie. The various Passions as sung in
the Church today are very ancient,
and the melodies to which they are
rendered go back to remote antiquity.
Many of the great composers of the
Middle Ages, notably Palestrina, Wit
toria and Soriano, wrote music for the
part of the Turba or multitude. AS
time went on the practice of singing
the story of the last great week
spread into the Protestant churches
and later composers wrote settings
of the Gospel narrative. In Leipsic,
the home of Sebastian Bach, the
Passion music was part of the Lenten
service, and the master, who was a
man of great piety, made it more
than once his aim to give to the
most touching and significant of all
dramas an artistic and appropriate
musical setting. Bach is believed to
have written five Passions. Two of
these, owing to the carelessness of
his son friedman in the matter Of
the paternal manuscripts, have been
lost; that according to st. Luke" is
considered by many authorities to be
spurious; and the ST. Johns Passion
is overshadowed by the magnificent
setting according to st. Matthew"
This wonderful composition was first
presented in the Church of st. Thomas
in Leipsic on the afternoon of Good
Friday, 1929. After the composers
death it fell into some out-of-the-way
corner, and was not heard again until
revived by Felix Mendelssohn some
SO years afterward. When the work
was again revived the world recog-
nized it's greatness, and the world of
today is learning more and more to
appreciate the beauty and solemnity
of a composition which portrays the
sights and scenes of the last few days
of our Lords life before His cruel
fiXion as no other work has done
since that time. Another work of
more recent date which portrays the
Passion and Death of our Lord in
more dramatic form is ''The Redemp-
ton" of the French composer, Charles
Gounod In "The Redemption"
Gounod combines old and new
of the narrator and the chorale,
which he treats in an inspired fash
ion. He also employs the leithotif of
Wagner in the beautiful phrase which
is supposed to represent the redeem
ing love of the Savior. The chorales
represent the sentiments of the
Church and the choruses those of the
crowd. The various numbers of the
work such as the March to Calvary"
barbaric strain representative, as
Gounod tells us, of "the brutality of
the pagan force dragging Jesus to
execution" the various incidents of
the sorrowful progress to Calvary, the
wonderful scenes of the Crucifixion,
the touching episode of Mary at the
foot of the Cross" are all treated in
manner which ranks "The Redemption"
as one of the grandest Catholic ora
torios of modern times. Many other
works descriptive of the Passion have
appeared in modern times. "The Seven
Last Words" by Dubois, the Seven
Last Words" by Haydn, the "Stabat
Mater" of the Bohemian, Dvorak, so
different from that of the Italian, Ros-
SIM, and the splendid Passion music
from Cigars oratorio, "The Apostles"
have all been added to the treasures
of music descriptive of the last scenes
in the life of our Lord on earth, and
as our Catholic choirs improve and
take their rightful places in the world
of music, these works will more and
more help to bring home to our people
the lessons of Holy Week.