I’m not sure that I had ever heard anything by Heinrich Schütz before this afternoon but I’m glad that I have now.  His St. John Passion formed the first half of the closing concert of the Toronto Bach Festival at St. Barnabas on the Danforth this afternoon.  Written in 1666, towards the end of his life ,it’s steeped in the Lutheran tradition.  There’s no orchestra.  The main burden of the Gospel is taken by the Evangelist as narrator in a style not very far from the Anglican traditional style of singing metrical psalms.  The emphasis is on the text; indeed on The Word.  Members of the chorus contribute in similar style as Jesus, Pilate and so on.  The narrative is interspersed with polyphonic choruses with sparse organ accompaniment perhaps hinting at an even older tradition where the meaning of the words mattered less.

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