Suggestions for including music in the Passion reading

[quantum]

Would like to include music in the reading of the Passion. This is for Good Friday, Roman Catholic. Nothing too long or too difficult for the choir.

[steadywind]

Here are a few possiblilties depending on what your choir can handle. First of all I would suggest listening to a recording of Bach's St. John Passion. Bachincludes a number of chorales throughout the work and you'll get an idea of likely places to insert choral music in the midst of the narrative, and how the hymn texts reflect or comment oneach particular moment in the story.The hymn tunes Bach uses are common in a number of different hymnals, (Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal) although the texts may be modified.Even a small 4-part choir could pull this off easily. You could substitute one or more familiar Passion-related hymns from your parish's repertoire and adapt as you think would work in your case, using only selected stanzas, women or men unison stanzas etc.

If you are looking for shorter acclamations or antiphons have a look at the material from Taize,published by GIA.

GIA also has a new edition of the St. John Passion for several readers with little musical bits by Marty Haugen.

Was there something else you had in mind?

[Dana Rabenberg]

A few years ago, I made a setting of Bach's St. Matthew Passion that "fit" 21st-century worship. I took the texts of the recitatives and arias, and assigned them to four different readers. I found English translations of the chorales (with one exception--I was unable to find a translation for "O Mensch, bewein dein' Suende Gross" so I made my own). This became a Good Friday worship service. It began with a recording of Bach's opening chorus, followed by the readings, with the chorales interspersed. The choir led the congregation in the chorales (this is a Lutheran church, and the congregation is somewhat familiar with most of the chorales). The service closed with a recording of Bach's final chorus. The overall Affekt of this service is profoundly moving; it reminds us that Lutheran worship does not have to be dry and unemotional.

We will be doing this worship service again this coming Good Friday; I'm looking forward to it.

DR

(NOTE: if anyone on this forum is interested in getting more information about this worship service, please email me at danacathy@yahoo.com).