Bach Easter Oratorio
Sunday, April 23, 2023
4:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m.
All Saints Choir with Soloists and Orchestra
Admission by Donation
This month, instead of our usual Choral Evensong, join us for this spectacula performance of J.S. Bach’s Easter Oratorio. A casual reception follows.
Parking is available at Canada Life. Click here for a map and more information on parking.
The Easter Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach was composed in 1725 in Leipzig, in the third year of Bach’s tenure at the St. Thomas Church. Like so many of Bach’s compositions, this was also a “work in progress,” receiving revisions in 1735, when he first names it an oratorio, and then again sometime in the 1740s. Revisions included changes in scoring, such as replacing the solo violin with the solo flute in the soprano aria, as well as adding more choral work.
Among the over two hundred cantatas and oratorios composed by Bach, the Easter Oratorio assumes a unique position. It is the only church music composition by Bach in which a narrative is presented implicitly, that is, without a narrator or evangelist. While his cantatas as a rule focus on a theme, or a chorale, his oratorios, like the Christmas oratorio, the Ascension oratorio, or the Passions, focus on a recitation of the biblical narrative, normally in the voice of a tenor evangelist.
The Easter Oratorio opens with two instrumental movements, most likely remnants of a concerto written in earlier years when Bach was in Cöthen. These two movements reflect not only the joy of the resurrection, but also, as portrayed in the heavy-hearted second movement, with the wonderful solo oboe line, the sorrow over the death of Jesus, which still hung heavily over his followers, before they grasped the reality of his resurrection.
In the third movement we encounter the disciples Peter (the tenor) and John (the bass) rushing to the tomb. In the original 1725 version, this movement was cast entirely as a duet. In his final version, Bach arranged the opening of the duet for full chorus, retaining the duet only for the middle section of the movement. Closely related to the opening movement, this third movement might very well have been the third movement of an original instrumental composition. Quite possibly it was the ascending running motifs that inspired Bach to use this music for an Easter Oratorio, a perfect picture of the resurrection.
The story continues in the following recitative at the tomb of Jesus, where Peter and John meet Mary the mother of James (soprano) and Mary Magdalene (alto), whose intention to salve the body with spices and myrrh had now become pointless. In the following soprano aria, Mary the mother of James then reflects that those spices could now be replaced with the laurel wreath of victory. But it is an aria of mixed emotions, deeply reflective and not fully consumed with joy and elation: she acknowledges that Jesus is no longer in the tomb, but of course, she has not yet met the risen Christ.
And so the story continues in the following recitative involving Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John. Mary informs the questioning men, that an angel brought the good news that Jesus has risen from the dead. Upon finding Jesus’ empty shroud, Peter responds in the following aria, that his own death will now also only be a gentle sleep, and that he too can look forward to a resurrection. Again this aria is tinged with a note of sadness: Bach emphasizes this through his scoring–originally for two recorders–which was common for funeral music–one need only think of the opening of his funeral cantata Actus Tragicus. But it is also pastoral slumber music, in a similar vein to the well-known “Sheep may safely graze.” In fact, when Bach reused the music of the Easter Oratorio for a secular cantata, he set the words: “Lull yourselves to sleep, you satisfied sheep” to the music of this tenor aria.
The next recitative, set for the two Marys, picks up on the theme of longing to encounter the resurrected Christ, for, as Mary Magdalene exclaims in the following alto aria, without Jesus’ embrace, she will remain “orphaned and wretched.” But the tone of this aria is quite different–it is filled with confident joy in meeting the resurrected Saviour.
And so John proclaims in the last recitative, that Jesus has indeed been raised from the dead, and that all should join in a song of jubilation. In response the choir, which Bach identifies as the “chorus of believers,” then raises its song of joy and thanksgiving in the final chorus. And so the oratorio ends, not with a chorale, as was the norm with a cantata, but with a great chorus, in the spirit and form of an oratorio. A final chorale indeed follows, but it will be sung by the entire congregation at the conclusion of the service.
