:00:14. > :00:15.Time travel is our objective tonight, so buckle up
:00:16. > :00:17.because we are going back almost 300 years.
:00:18. > :00:20.It's all to get closer to the world of Johann Sebastian Bach
:00:21. > :00:22.and his radical, revolutionary and ravishing St John Passion.
:00:23. > :00:53.Tonight, The Royal Albert Hall will feel like a different
:00:54. > :00:57.Rather than the concert hall we all know and love,
:00:58. > :00:59.John Butt and his Dunedin Consort are going to transport us
:01:00. > :01:02.into an 18th-century German church so we can experience the mighty
:01:03. > :01:08.power of Bach's St John Passion as its first listeners did.
:01:09. > :01:16.There will even be some sing-a-long moments.
:01:17. > :01:19.I am Richard Coles and I can't wait for this total immersion.
:01:20. > :01:22.We are about to be enveloped in Bach's retelling of the final
:01:23. > :01:24.days of Christ's life and His crucifixion.
:01:25. > :01:27.The St John Passion is not an opera, but it is a highly theatrical,
:01:28. > :01:29.and heart-wrenching encounter with the characters of the Gospel
:01:30. > :01:33.I'm Hannah French and tonight the Dunedin Consort are recreating
:01:34. > :01:36.elements of the Good Friday Service for which the St John Passion
:01:37. > :01:38.was originally written, the audience here will sing chorales
:01:39. > :01:40.around the Passion as the congregation would have done
:01:41. > :01:47.in the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig in 1724.
:01:48. > :01:49.Tonight's ensemble are all playing original 18th-century instruments
:01:50. > :01:53.or replicas so these were the instruments,
:01:54. > :01:56.and the sounds, this music would have originally been heard on.
:01:57. > :01:59.But Bach would have heard the SJP performed by school boys
:02:00. > :02:03.and university students in Leipzig, HE could only dream of a performance
:02:04. > :02:06.in the hands of the Dunedin Consort, luckily for US these musicians
:02:07. > :02:09.specialise in the business of sonic time travel.
:02:10. > :02:13.But one thing that the performers here tonight cannot replicate
:02:14. > :02:15.is that when the St John Passion was first performed,
:02:16. > :02:18.nobody in the town of Leipzig would have heard any
:02:19. > :02:22.During Lent, the churches all fell silent and then on Good Friday that
:02:23. > :02:26.silence would have been shattered with the music we are about to hear.
:02:27. > :02:27.The congregation would not have heard anything
:02:28. > :02:32.It was a truly revolutionary piece of music with its operatic arias,
:02:33. > :02:34.its visceral focus on Christ's suffering, sparkling polyphony
:02:35. > :02:43.Many of you may know the more famous older brother,
:02:44. > :02:46.The St Matthew Passion, for me the St John Passion is a much
:02:47. > :03:06.Before the first part of the Passion, we are going to hear
:03:07. > :03:08.the Organ Prelude and Chorale, the audience here in
:03:09. > :03:12.the Royal Albert Hall, the congregation, will join in.
:03:13. > :03:15.These two pieces will present The Passion in the way it would have
:03:16. > :03:18.been introduced in church in Bach's time, evoking how its very
:03:19. > :03:23.The Passion's opening chorus sets the scene,
:03:24. > :03:26.as the choir asks to be shown that Christ is the true Son of God before
:03:27. > :03:30.we plunge straight into the action as Jesus is arrested in the Garden
:03:31. > :03:33.of Gethsemane The Role of Jesus is sung this evening
:03:34. > :03:56.by Matthew Brook and the Evangelist by Nicholas Mulroy.
:03:57. > :51:03.That was the Chorale Lamm Gottes bringing the whole
:51:04. > :51:07.of The Royal Albert Hall together in song in response to Bach's
:51:08. > :51:12.portrayal of the disciple Peter's denial and disowning of Christ
:51:13. > :51:23.at the end of the first part of the St John Passion.
:51:24. > :51:29.What a stirring performance by the Dunedin Consort
:51:30. > :51:33.Tonight's soloists are Nicholas Mulroy as the Evangelist
:51:34. > :51:35.and Matthew Brook as Jesus, with Sofi Bevan, Tim Mead,
:51:36. > :51:52.A shattering moment, isn't it, to leave this narrative. We have had
:51:53. > :51:56.Peter's denial of Jesus and his dejection at the end of that, and
:51:57. > :52:01.all of a sudden we break for ice cream! It is a weird, jarring
:52:02. > :52:08.moment. It is. You have hit exactly on the mark of Hart's genius, the
:52:09. > :52:12.Masters the mix of old and new. Setting the Passion to music was a
:52:13. > :52:21.centuries-old tradition. Having a chorus and a tenor narrating. What
:52:22. > :52:27.Bach does is he injects this drama across the score, particularly in
:52:28. > :52:31.these arias and duets. More emotion, real characters with everyday
:52:32. > :52:37.feeling. People can actually respond to it. He wants to stir us in our
:52:38. > :52:41.deepest parts. You have the whole audience congregation joining
:52:42. > :52:44.together. You have the whole community coming together and
:52:45. > :52:49.sharing this intensely personal moment. It is. It is very much the
:52:50. > :52:54.spirit of the 18th century, the way in which artists didn't just perform
:52:55. > :52:59.for passive entertainment but they reached out and people in their
:53:00. > :53:03.audiences. Audiences therefore had very physical experiences of their
:53:04. > :53:06.music so will they pulled their audiences in. You shared the pain
:53:07. > :53:12.and the enthusiasm and you are very much part of it.
:53:13. > :53:18.We caught up with John Butt earlier to find out what made him want to
:53:19. > :53:26.stage the St John Passion in this way.
:53:27. > :53:34.Bach most of his choral works when he was actually working at a school.
:53:35. > :53:40.He was essentially reliant on school pupils for vocalists. Boys between
:53:41. > :53:44.the age of eight and 23. He also had the talent pipers, town musicians.
:53:45. > :53:48.These were generally very skilled players. Bach himself came from that
:53:49. > :53:51.environment. Then of course students at the University filled in the
:53:52. > :53:57.gaps, particularly in the orchestra. It was quite a motley crew. The
:53:58. > :54:02.trick today of course is to try and get back something of the roughness
:54:03. > :54:08.of the schoolchildren. Obviously if it is to refine, you lose the
:54:09. > :54:12.rhetoric of the peace. -- if it is to refine. A lot of modern
:54:13. > :54:18.techniques of singing and playing, they tend to go over the cracks as
:54:19. > :54:21.it were. My job is to partly try and encourage people to relive that
:54:22. > :54:26.rhetorical aspect of the original performance, but actually probably
:54:27. > :54:33.at a much higher up local level than Bach ever imagined. -- higher local
:54:34. > :54:39.level. My main interest is to see how people react to the pacing,
:54:40. > :54:47.spacing and flow of Bach's music within this larger whole. How does
:54:48. > :54:54.it actually strike the individual listener when you hear it in a
:54:55. > :54:59.context like this? When one thinks of Bach's Leipzig, his congregations
:55:00. > :55:02.were often a couple of thousand obviously stuffed into a smaller
:55:03. > :55:08.space. So the volume of people is not that different in terms of scale
:55:09. > :55:11.from what Bach might have had. The other thing I'm very interested in
:55:12. > :55:17.finding out through this performance is how, when the audience who are
:55:18. > :55:22.invited to sing Chorales at the beginning, middle and end, whether
:55:23. > :55:27.that changes their receptivity. How they actually feel listening, having
:55:28. > :55:30.felt that on bodies resonating to their own voices. As Forest St John
:55:31. > :55:34.Passion is concerned, the thing that is really striking about it is its
:55:35. > :55:38.relentlessness. Once you step into it, you can't get off it. It is a
:55:39. > :55:46.bit like getting on a roller-coaster and just as the door closes you
:55:47. > :55:51.think, did I really want to do that? Its expressive range is absolutely
:55:52. > :55:55.enormous, it is one of the most frighteningly expressive. It is a
:55:56. > :55:59.frightening piece, in many ways. It has many moments of beauty, too. The
:56:00. > :56:07.impact of the piece is absolutely devastating. What we've got ahead
:56:08. > :56:12.now is actually most of the Passion narrative. We go through the trial,
:56:13. > :56:15.the crucifixion, having been taken along the roller-coaster, suddenly
:56:16. > :56:20.the piece slows us down and takes us almost lower than our everyday life.
:56:21. > :56:21.It makes us faster than slower. In some ways, all of the drama is yet
:56:22. > :56:28.to come. John Butt, musical director
:56:29. > :56:32.of Edinburgh's Dunedin Consort. Now if we were in church
:56:33. > :56:36.in Bach's Leipzig, following the chorales,
:56:37. > :56:38.organ preludes and the first part of The Passion,
:56:39. > :56:40.we would now be hearing the Good Friday sermon,
:56:41. > :56:42.which would last about an hour. Richard, after that
:56:43. > :56:44.highly wrought drama, what would there have been
:56:45. > :56:51.left to say?! Well, it is a very brave cleric who
:56:52. > :56:56.would stand up and interrupted the St John Passion to preach a sermon.
:56:57. > :57:00.But the death of Jesus on the cross is absolutely central to the version
:57:01. > :57:04.of theology that Bach as a Lutheran would be familiar with. Indeed in
:57:05. > :57:09.churches now on Good Friday, it is very much the custom to dwell, and
:57:10. > :57:13.particularly focus in, on that thing. My own view more and more is
:57:14. > :57:16.that actually the liturgy does the job for you. I don't think I could
:57:17. > :57:22.have been more moved by anything in preacher said that I have been
:57:23. > :57:27.tonight by Bach. The story that you have heard 1000 times, yet it still
:57:28. > :57:29.moves you, affects you and changes you.
:57:30. > :57:32.In 1724, the people of Leipzig would have been eagerly
:57:33. > :57:34.anticipating what their new, 39-year-old resident composer had
:57:35. > :57:36.come up with for the occasion for his first Good Friday
:57:37. > :57:45.In fact, the operatic qualities in St John Passion may have raised more
:57:46. > :57:51.than a few eyebrows, especially among Bach's employers. His contract
:57:52. > :57:55.required him to arrange music that is not too long, not to operatic in
:57:56. > :58:00.style, but still installs a fear of God in the listener. He still
:58:01. > :58:06.overstepped the mark there! Bach masters the large forces of organ,
:58:07. > :58:10.orchestral musicians and choir and vocalists. But Bach could apply his
:58:11. > :58:16.colour palette as brilliantly Tisolo works as the these showcase pieces.
:58:17. > :58:23.To see what his genius could do with just a solo violin, let's take a
:58:24. > :02:06.look at Alina Ibragimova playing at the Proms in 2015.
:02:07. > :02:10.Stunning, Alina Ibragimova at the Proms two years ago playing
:02:11. > :02:15.Partita No Two in D minor for solo violin.
:02:16. > :02:18.Isn't it incredible how Bach's writing for a single instrument,
:02:19. > :02:20.and a great performance, can captivate 6000 people
:02:21. > :02:26.Just ahead of Part two of The St Johns Passion a chance
:02:27. > :02:30.to look ahead to more Bach coming up this season.
:02:31. > :02:32.On 7th September the great Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff will take
:02:33. > :02:35.on a monumental work from Bach's solo repertoire, Book one
:02:36. > :02:41.To whet your appetite here he is at the Proms in 2015
:02:42. > :02:44.playing another of Bach's great masterpieces for solo piano-
:02:45. > :04:51.Andras Schiff, who's back at the Proms on the 7th of September.
:04:52. > :04:53.You'll be able to see it here on BBC Four.
:04:54. > :04:56.Back to the second part of tonight's performance now.
:04:57. > :04:59.We get underway with one of Bach's short organ preludes and then
:05:00. > :05:01.we are back into the world of the St John Passion.
:05:02. > :05:03.Part two dives headlong back into the action.
:05:04. > :05:05.Jesus, abandoned by his friends, the disciples, is led
:05:06. > :05:12.Listen to the sheer force of the chorus when they come in,
:05:13. > :05:15.cast as the baying mob calling for Jesus' death, it's
:05:16. > :05:18.music composed to make you shiver with fear.
:05:19. > :05:21.We then follow Jesus to his crucifixion and death,
:05:22. > :05:24.and the story of his entombment is relayed by the Evangelist.
:05:25. > :05:29.In the final chorus and chorale, we glimpse the joy of Christ's
:05:30. > :40:17.The Dunedin Consort making an impression in their proms debut.
:40:18. > :40:56.Matthew Brook as Jesus. Soprano, Sofi Bevan.
:40:57. > :41:00.Raising the roof of The Royal Albert Hall this evening. John Butt back on
:41:01. > :41:03.stage. The congregational singing,
:41:04. > :41:08.and in fact all of this evening's concert, beautifully evoking
:41:09. > :41:11.the feeling of the Good Friday service in Leipzig when Bach
:41:12. > :41:13.premiered the St John Passion The Proms are back on BBC4 next
:41:14. > :41:20.Friday, with Jules Buckley and The Metropole Orchestra's
:41:21. > :41:23.tribute to legendary composer, innovator,
:41:24. > :41:27.and bass virtuoso Charles Mingus. But for now, from all of us here
:41:28. > :41:38.at the Royal Albert Hall, goodnight.