0:00:02 > 0:00:04It's a Coliseum of music, the Royal Albert Hall.
0:00:04 > 0:00:06Imagine what it's like being on that stage
0:00:06 > 0:00:08with 6,000 people waiting with bated breath
0:00:08 > 0:00:12to be taken to a cosmic realm of musical joy.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15But there's more. The responsibility of anyone playing at the Proms
0:00:15 > 0:00:18is also to the pieces they're performing
0:00:18 > 0:00:20and to the composers who wrote them.
0:00:20 > 0:00:22And every Thursday night here on BBC Four,
0:00:22 > 0:00:24the stakes are the highest of all.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28Because we're going on a journey through musical masterworks
0:00:28 > 0:00:31from the last 300 years of music history.
0:00:42 > 0:00:44Well, I call it history,
0:00:44 > 0:00:47but this isn't music in a past tense.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50If these performances are going to shake you up, as you should do,
0:00:50 > 0:00:52then they have to make all of these pieces -
0:00:52 > 0:00:55symphonies, concertos, passions - matter right now.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58They have to sound like the most extreme, the newest,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00the most essential music you've ever heard.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03Cos we're not going to let them get away with anything less
0:01:03 > 0:01:06than a transcendent performance, now, are we?
0:01:06 > 0:01:09Welcome to Masterworks At The Proms.
0:01:36 > 0:01:38And we're going to start with
0:01:38 > 0:01:40one of the most astounding works of Western music -
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion.
0:01:43 > 0:01:45Bach made this work for a liturgical context
0:01:45 > 0:01:50and it was first performed on Good Friday 290 years ago
0:01:50 > 0:01:52in St Nicholas Church in Leipzig.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55And its music is pitched at the furthest reaches
0:01:55 > 0:01:57of Bach's compositional virtuosity -
0:01:57 > 0:02:01in its arias, in its operatic storytelling, and in its choruses.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04But Bach also grounds the drama
0:02:04 > 0:02:06in the chorales he places throughout the story.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09So here's the challenge for tonight's performers,
0:02:09 > 0:02:12the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and the Zurcher Sing-Akademie -
0:02:12 > 0:02:14to make us all feel like participants
0:02:14 > 0:02:16in the drama of Christ's Passion,
0:02:16 > 0:02:19and to implicate us - all of us - in the profound moral
0:02:19 > 0:02:22and emotional questions it raises.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25Tonight's conductor, leading all of this, is Sir Roger Norrington.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29Sir Roger, what about your vision of what this piece is?
0:02:29 > 0:02:32After all, this kind of Passion setting
0:02:32 > 0:02:36was criticised in Bach's lifetime for being too operatic...
0:02:36 > 0:02:39- Absolutely.- And yet we might think it's too devotional for our tastes.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43How do you see the idea of what this Passion might be?
0:02:43 > 0:02:45It's both, of course.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47Of course it was devotional and of course it is dramatic.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49The choruses are fantastically dramatic,
0:02:49 > 0:02:51even more so than in the Matthew Passion.
0:02:51 > 0:02:55And the arias, some of them are a little bit thoughtful,
0:02:55 > 0:02:57but others are very, very active,
0:02:57 > 0:03:00like the first tenor aria at the end of part one.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03And it's interesting coming back to the John Passion,
0:03:03 > 0:03:07because I don't do it very much at all, I'm not a Bach expert -
0:03:07 > 0:03:10as it says in the Proms guide, I'm a...
0:03:10 > 0:03:12It's time to switch off. I'm not a Bach expert.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15But of course I've done an awful lot of Bach and I love it.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19But coming back to it, as I do every 15 or 20 years,
0:03:19 > 0:03:22I'm struck this time by how...
0:03:22 > 0:03:25How extremely positive it is.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28That it's tremendously powerful and strong.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30It isn't wailing and sad.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34Even the final chorus, although it's a sort of lullaby,
0:03:34 > 0:03:35is powerful.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38It's looking forward to our salvation.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40For people coming to this for the first time, people who...
0:03:40 > 0:03:43Especially where we are now in civilisation,
0:03:43 > 0:03:44people watching this performance
0:03:44 > 0:03:47may or may not worship the Christian God.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49Does it then just become a good story?
0:03:49 > 0:03:51It's an incredible story.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55Any time you play a religious piece, you're...
0:03:55 > 0:03:59You're dealing with these extraordinary events.
0:03:59 > 0:04:04Bach was simply setting the text and following every nuance of it.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07People think of Bach as terribly religious -
0:04:07 > 0:04:10I don't think he was like, you know, he could have been a priest.
0:04:10 > 0:04:12He was a musician.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15He could have been in London writing for the theatre.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18It's an astonishing work of music.
0:04:18 > 0:04:20It's an extremely serious work of devotion.
0:04:20 > 0:04:22Um...
0:04:22 > 0:04:24and we just bring all our energy to it
0:04:24 > 0:04:26to make it work as well as we possibly can.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32So, to Part One of Bach's St John Passion.
0:04:32 > 0:04:37After the tormented and searching opening chorus,
0:04:37 > 0:04:40Jesus is taken captive and his disciples react with confusion,
0:04:40 > 0:04:42and even violence.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45And at the end of the first part, after about half an hour or so,
0:04:45 > 0:04:49Peter three times denies that he is one of Jesus' followers.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51Now, at the centre of the action is the Evangelist,
0:04:51 > 0:04:54who's sung tonight by the tenor James Gilchrist.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57And the Evangelist is the person who tells the story.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01He's the person who connects all of the levels of the Passion together.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04Listen to him and you can't possibly get lost.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06This is a story, a Passion,
0:05:06 > 0:05:09that's both narrated and lived and embodied.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12Yes, this is a masterwork,
0:05:12 > 0:05:14but this is music that means absolutely nothing at all
0:05:14 > 0:05:17without the participation of an audience.
0:05:17 > 0:05:19This audience, which we're all part of.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23You know what? Right now there are all kinds of different emotional
0:05:23 > 0:05:26and musical outcomes that are possible.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30Is this going to thrill us with an evangelical hope,
0:05:30 > 0:05:34or rather confront us with this music's doubt and darkness?
0:05:34 > 0:05:36APPLAUSE
0:07:34 > 0:07:36REPEATING
0:24:47 > 0:24:50REPEATING
0:37:20 > 0:37:24APPLAUSE
0:38:06 > 0:38:08What's fascinating about that,
0:38:08 > 0:38:11the end of the first part of the John Passion,
0:38:11 > 0:38:14is that Bach doesn't end with a big dramatic number,
0:38:14 > 0:38:18instead with one of those communal, contemporary hymn tunes.
0:38:18 > 0:38:20And what I think you can't really prepare for
0:38:20 > 0:38:22until you're really encountering the experience
0:38:22 > 0:38:25of being in and with the Bach St John Passion
0:38:25 > 0:38:28is the sense of all of these different layers of the music,
0:38:28 > 0:38:32really, are just so many ways of telling the story.
0:38:32 > 0:38:33The effect, especially the way
0:38:33 > 0:38:36that Sir Roger Norrington is conducting this,
0:38:36 > 0:38:38where one number is moving immediately into the next,
0:38:38 > 0:38:40so, recitative immediately into chorale,
0:38:40 > 0:38:42immediately into aria, you know,
0:38:42 > 0:38:45it just becomes one gigantic, multi-layered telling
0:38:45 > 0:38:48of this uniquely thrilling story.
0:38:48 > 0:38:50I also really like the way in the performance
0:38:50 > 0:38:53that each individual musician and singer feels like part of the drama,
0:38:53 > 0:38:57the way that the woodwind soloist stood up to accompany the arias,
0:38:57 > 0:38:59the way that some of the singers in the choir
0:38:59 > 0:39:02came forward to take the smaller parts,
0:39:02 > 0:39:04like Peter at the end of the first part.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08Well, before the much longer second part of the St John Passion,
0:39:08 > 0:39:12Christ's trial and death, more from Roger Norrington.
0:39:12 > 0:39:16Now, in the next 80 minutes of lacerating music and drama,
0:39:16 > 0:39:20it's the solo arias, the arias for solo voice,
0:39:20 > 0:39:23that run like a golden thread throughout,
0:39:23 > 0:39:25turning anguish into beauty.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28One of the most striking is the long tenor aria,
0:39:28 > 0:39:32huge aria, where he...
0:39:32 > 0:39:35Christ has just been beaten,
0:39:35 > 0:39:40so there's blood all over his back, and the text says,
0:39:40 > 0:39:42"This is like a rainbow in heaven
0:39:42 > 0:39:45"giving a promise of hope" so you've got the suffering on one side
0:39:45 > 0:39:49and thanks on the other side all the time. Striking.
0:39:49 > 0:39:53- And done with music of great beauty...- Intense beauty, yes.
0:39:53 > 0:39:57..but that sums up one of the real issues in this piece.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59I mean, we're asked to really contemplate
0:39:59 > 0:40:01absolutely horrifying images
0:40:01 > 0:40:04and nonetheless find a great beauty in them, in Bach's music,
0:40:04 > 0:40:05but somehow we're supposed to
0:40:05 > 0:40:08have torture transcended into something beautiful.
0:40:08 > 0:40:10I mean, it's full of these really horrifying moments, actually.
0:40:10 > 0:40:14It's full of horror and yet the piece is about hope.
0:40:14 > 0:40:17And I suppose, you know, if you lived at that time,
0:40:17 > 0:40:21I mean, how many of Bach's children died? His first wife died.
0:40:21 > 0:40:22Mozart, a few years later,
0:40:22 > 0:40:25only he and his sister survived out of seven children.
0:40:25 > 0:40:29They were used to hanging on with their fingernails to life
0:40:29 > 0:40:33and anything that could give them hope was very important to them
0:40:33 > 0:40:34and incredibly powerful.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37The thing is, for me, by the end of the John Passion,
0:40:37 > 0:40:40I find it profoundly emotionally ambiguous...
0:40:40 > 0:40:45- Right, OK.- ..because we end with the image of Jesus buried,
0:40:45 > 0:40:47the resurrection, we might know is going to happen,
0:40:47 > 0:40:50but it's not necessarily assured.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52We're supposed to be with Christ
0:40:52 > 0:40:55and empathise with the pain of what's just happened, rather...
0:40:55 > 0:40:56But hang on.
0:40:56 > 0:40:58The music is sad,
0:40:58 > 0:41:01it's like a minuet.
0:41:01 > 0:41:06- This is the final chorus. - The final, big chorus.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10But again, it's positive, it isn't saying, "Oh, how sad",
0:41:10 > 0:41:13it's saying, "How wonderful that this has been achieved."
0:41:13 > 0:41:16The famous aria, Es Ist Vollbracht...
0:41:16 > 0:41:17"It is accomplished."
0:41:17 > 0:41:21Yeah, it's not, "Oh, dear, I'm dead",
0:41:21 > 0:41:23it's "I have won."
0:41:23 > 0:41:26"I have won and I have won your redemption."
0:41:26 > 0:41:28And don't forget, after this slightly sad final chorus,
0:41:28 > 0:41:30which I do, actually, very strongly,
0:41:30 > 0:41:33because it's so affirmative against your view,
0:41:33 > 0:41:37but after that comes this fantastic chorale, where they say,
0:41:37 > 0:41:39"Lead me forth to glory."
0:41:39 > 0:41:41I mean, it's a fantastic moment,
0:41:41 > 0:41:44and that's not at all sad.
0:41:44 > 0:41:50So, I think it's sadness and hope and glory all in one extraordinary piece.
0:41:53 > 0:41:57Well, his hope or my ambiguity, joy or darkness.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00What's definite is that there's a transformative power
0:42:00 > 0:42:03in the music of Part Two of Bach's St John Passion,
0:42:03 > 0:42:04including the arias for solo bass,
0:42:04 > 0:42:07which are sung tonight by Hanno Muller-Brachmann,
0:42:07 > 0:42:11who stepped in at the last minute to be at tonight's Prom.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14The Evangelist is again the key to the drama.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17From Christ's trial and Pontius Pilate's moral torment
0:42:17 > 0:42:19to his crucifixion and death.
0:42:19 > 0:42:2380 minutes of music maybe, but a completely clear dramatic shape.
0:42:23 > 0:42:27The music of the trial scene is the most vivid and fast-paced
0:42:27 > 0:42:29and cinematic in the whole Passion.
0:42:29 > 0:42:32Now, Roger Norrington also said to me
0:42:32 > 0:42:35that he wants the final music of the St John Passion,
0:42:35 > 0:42:38the last chorus and the very final hymn tune,
0:42:38 > 0:42:39to be what he called
0:42:39 > 0:42:41- "a Salvation Army moment." - APPLAUSE
0:42:41 > 0:42:43Now, what he meant by that
0:42:43 > 0:42:46is that it should be performed, sung, and perhaps even listened to,
0:42:46 > 0:42:48with a fervent evangelical energy
0:42:48 > 0:42:51rather than the philosophical or theological doubt
0:42:51 > 0:42:53that I was going on about.
0:42:53 > 0:42:57Now, I'm fascinated to see how and if that works,
0:42:57 > 0:43:00because can we really find joy
0:43:00 > 0:43:03through this most intense of all depictions in music
0:43:03 > 0:43:06of suffering and pain?
0:43:07 > 0:43:10APPLAUSE
1:51:20 > 1:51:25APPLAUSE
1:52:41 > 1:52:43APPLAUSE INTENSIFIES
1:52:43 > 1:52:47CHEERING
1:52:56 > 1:52:58APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH
1:53:18 > 1:53:21APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH
1:53:26 > 1:53:29- You see what I mean about the end?- I do, I do.
1:53:29 > 1:53:32- Keinen Zweifel.- Keinen Zweifel! - HE LAUGHS
1:53:37 > 1:53:39Roger... OK, look, I see what you mean.
1:53:39 > 1:53:42That final chorale, I mean, nobody's ever done it like that.
1:53:42 > 1:53:44I've never heard it done like that.
1:53:44 > 1:53:46It was.... It is a call to joy, done like that.
1:53:46 > 1:53:49Yes, it is. It is. The whole piece is a call to joy,
1:53:49 > 1:53:51but through somebody else's suffering.
1:53:51 > 1:53:55- The Germans have a word for it - Schadenfreude.- Indeed!
1:53:55 > 1:53:57But it's not just the final chorus,
1:53:57 > 1:53:59it's the whole trajectory of that performance.
1:53:59 > 1:54:03I don't think I've ever heard, and probably many people in the hall,
1:54:03 > 1:54:05a John Passion that has moved so quickly,
1:54:05 > 1:54:08not necessarily in individual movements, but it's moved fast.
1:54:08 > 1:54:12It's got a forward trajectory, yeah, tried to get that.
1:54:12 > 1:54:15And a sort of positive... Whenever possible, positive.
1:54:15 > 1:54:18Occasionally there's a moment of quiet.
1:54:18 > 1:54:21But on the whole, it's positive.
1:54:21 > 1:54:25It's all been foretold, and now it's fulfilled.
1:54:25 > 1:54:26The final moment, then,
1:54:26 > 1:54:29when the solo singers were also part of that final chorale,
1:54:29 > 1:54:30- the chorus put their books down.- Yeah.
1:54:30 > 1:54:33Do you feel also a connection with the audience at that point?
1:54:33 > 1:54:36Yeah, I think, in a way, the chorales...
1:54:36 > 1:54:39I don't think they were ever sung by the audience,
1:54:39 > 1:54:43but they represent, as it were, you know, all of us, the common man.
1:54:43 > 1:54:46The arias are way beyond us, the speech comes from the Gospel,
1:54:46 > 1:54:51but the hymns are what we could sing if we were good enough, so to speak.
1:54:51 > 1:54:55It's the public voice. That's why I do them sort of big, on the whole.
1:54:55 > 1:54:57- And you're singing with them at the end.- Yeah.
1:54:57 > 1:55:00After all, you sang the tenor solos of this piece 50 years ago,
1:55:00 > 1:55:03you know it better than anyone. Roger, thank you very much indeed.
1:55:03 > 1:55:05- Thank you. It's been a joy. - Great privilege.
1:55:08 > 1:55:10You know, the thing about this piece is that,
1:55:10 > 1:55:12in a way, it doesn't make sense today,
1:55:12 > 1:55:15because the story, Christ's story, is no longer central to our culture
1:55:15 > 1:55:18in the way that it was in the Leipzig of the early 18th century
1:55:18 > 1:55:20when Bach was there.
1:55:20 > 1:55:22And yet, it has a way
1:55:22 > 1:55:26of somehow making his time our time,
1:55:26 > 1:55:29of turning suffering into joy, and it's Bach's music that does that.
1:55:29 > 1:55:32Now, Bach himself would say that that's thanks to God,
1:55:32 > 1:55:35that that's really God's achievement.
1:55:35 > 1:55:37But I would say, rather, that it's Bach's.
1:55:37 > 1:55:41Ultimately, this is a piece that makes Christ's Passion,
1:55:41 > 1:55:44wherever we come from and whatever we feel about it, our own.