Tuesday, 12 April 2011

Bach's St John Passion and anti-Judaism

As we approach Holy Week and the last three days before Easter Sunday (The Triduum) my attention is always drawn to the content of the various 'passion' accounts that are read. Traditionally, on Palm Sunday it is from Matthew but on Good Friday it is that of the gospel of John. Increasingly, as I get older, I find that account more and more unbearable with its reiterated refrain of "The Jews...." did this or that. Since my interest in early modern northern European visual culture began to get serious my conflicts over this gospel passion have intensified.

This year I am reading Michael Marissen's Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism and Bach's St John Passion OUP 1998. I have only come to Bach's St John Passion late in life. Although I have known the Matthew Passion well over the decades it is only in the last decade that my attention has widen to 'the other' passion. The CD by New College, Oxford remains a must. Marissen's book sits between musicology, religion, history and, for me, is compelling. It ends with an annotated literal translation of the libretto. He wears his scholarship lightly.

Every time I hear the first chorus, I find it musically spine tingling.




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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous16 April 2011 at 19:02

    A couple of circular questions come to mind.

    If the gospels did not reflect humanity (warts and all), would they be of any enduring interest?

    If humanity did not have a propensity/need to identify and blame some blameworthy other, would there be any enduring need for a myth of redemption?

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  2. Bernard Ratigan16 April 2011 at 22:23

    thanks for the comments. I think the stories told in the Gospels have enduring human interest as you say.
    As to your second point, I think the writings of the French thinker René Girard especially as interpreted by James Allison, the British, catholic, gay theologian, have much to contribute to our understandings of concepts such as the scapegoat, the victim, mimetic desire, envy and so on. iTunes U from Stamford University has a useful interview with Girard. For Allison's work see his website: http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/

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  3. Richard Fox18 April 2011 at 20:43

    Very interesting.

    I particularly like the following quote from Allison on Girard.

    'But always the question “how do you read?”. And we know about everyone else, but rarely about ourselves, that “how does somebody read”, as evidenced in texts, can always be answered in one of two ways: “they read for self-justification, and in their reading, cover up their own and their friends’ complicity in violence” or “they read as people who are being exposed as frauds and liars who are becoming aware of the unpalatable nature of their involvement in violence”. Whatever the subject at hand, one or other of these is underway (and often, of course, a subtle and self-deceiving mixture of the two).'

    Even more interesting when the issues of which texts survive (and why) and how these are translated are added into the mix.

    Girard and Allison use so many words though...

    'Yet each man kills the thing he loves' says it very succinctly and Riddley Walker says it too I think.

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