It is in the approach to Easter that our Church’s musical life becomes richer than at any other time in the liturgical calendar.
As Jens F Laurson described so well in this magazine’s April 5 issue, Bach’s St Matthew sits, unapproachable, atop the Parnassus of Passiontide settings. Perhaps it is the tradition of hearing the work only at this time of year rather than, as with most other sacred works, whenever it fills a gap in programming, which makes it so special. Perhaps it moves us so because of its profound, uncelebratory yet joyous ecumenism and universality. Its being the work of a Protestant composer engaging reverently with the Catholic liturgy not even a century after the Thirty Years’ War ended gives it an eirenic quality other works can hardly hope to equal.
