Two St John's Passions
Cipriano de Rore
Cipriano de Rore’s (c. 1516–1565) fame as a composer was based on two main features: the radical harmonical language of his madrigals, which was emphasized as a major influence by a composer like Monteverdi half a century later; and his intricate polyphony, which is not necessarily pretty, but which ensures a musical variety, as well as conforming closely to the words – both metrically and in terms of contents (ex: Le Vergine and Crudele acerba).
Cipriano de Rore:
Crudele Acerba
Cipriano de Rore:
Vergine santa
He also wrote a passion of St John, which is remarkable as it does not display any of the above features. (Passio ... secundum Joannem, 2–6vv, (Paris, 1557) (doubtful; attrib. Willaert); ed. A. Schmitz, Oberitalienische Figuralpassion (Mainz, 1955), 57.) Throughout, it adheres strictly to the characteristics of the passion narrative as it was performed in the liturgy (e.g. using the same recitation tones and cadential figures as the backbone for the new music; the same distribution of parts and voice ranges, with Jesus in a low voice and the solilouqents in the higher register). He also uses a minimum of chord shapes, and abstains entirely from taking advantage of any possibilities for word painting or harmonic expansion.
Cipriano de Rore:
St John’s passion, beginning.
Passio domini nostri Jesu Christi secundum Johannem
18. 1: In illo tempore egressus est Jesus cum discipulis suis
trans torrentem Cedron ubi erat hortus in quem introivit ipse et discipuli
eius
2 sciebat autem et Iudas qui tradebat eum ipsum locum quia frequenter Iesus
convenerat illuc cum discipulis suis
3 Iudas ergo cum accepisset cohortem et a pontificibus et Pharisaeis
ministros venit illuc cum lanternis et facibus et armis
Cipriano de Rore:
St John’s passion, excerpt from the dialogue between Pilate and
Christ.
18. 33: Introivit ergo iterum in praetorium Pilatus et vocavit Iesum et dixit ei:
“tu es rex Iudaeorum?”
34 et respondit Iesus: “a
temet ipso hoc dicis an alii tibi dixerunt de me?”
35 respondit Pilatus: “numquid ego Iudaeus sum gens tua et pontifices
tradiderunt te mihi. Quid fecisti?”
…
38 et cum hoc dixisset iterum exivit ad Iudaeos et dicit eis: “ego nullam
invenio in eo causam,
39 est autem consuetudo vobis ut unum dimittam vobis in pascha. Vultis ergo
dimittam vobis regem Iudaeorum?”
40 Clamaverunt rursum omnes dicentes: “non hunc sed Barabbam!”
Erat autem
Barabbas latro
Cipriano de Rore:
St John’s passion, end.
19. 35: Et qui vidit testimonium perhibuit et verum est eius testimonium et ille
scit quia vera dicit ut et vos credatis.
36 Facta sunt enim haec ut scriptura impleatur: “os non comminuetis
ex eo”
37 et iterum alia scriptura dicit “videbunt in quem
transfixerunt”
The same is true for the text, which follows the liturgical model (conforming with the the use of Venice, also concerning the deviations from the Vulgate text), and there is no attempt to form a dramatic/narrative coherence: Rore ends in the middle of the story, with the prophecy shortly after Jesus’s death: “And again another scripture says, They shall look on him whom they pierced.”
Pärt
The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) is best known for his religious choral works. Early in his career he developed his own, very sparse style, strongly influenced by medieval music, and at odds with the prevalent music of his time. His St John’s Passion (1982) thus relates both to the “aesthetic” tradition of religious works, going through Bach and having Penderecki’s St Luke’s Passion and Britten’s War Requiem as contemporary cousins; and to the medieval, liturgical tradition of passion recitation.
Excerpt from
Pendercki's St Luke's
Passion
Pärt writes within the same kind of limitations as Rore: the alternation between fixed voice groups for the various roles; a recitiativic character throughout; fixed figures which recur, reminiscent of liturgical formulae.
On the surface, the two works are strikingly similar, and it is likely that Pärt knew Rore’s work.
Arvo Pärt:
St John’s passion, beginning (as above).
Arvo Pärt:
St John’s passion, excerpt (as above).
Arvo Pärt:
St John’s passion, end.
19. 30: cum ergo accepisset Iesus acetum dixit “consummatus est”
et inclinato
capite tradidit spiritum
Qui passus es pro nobis, Miserere nobis. Amen.
Contexts/discourses
Rore:
- The princely court of Ferrara, with a long tradition of liturgical works in a secular context, by the most estimated composers
- Liturgy (the text conforms with Venetian practice; generally: the Gregorian passion)
- Function and functional determinants
- Is the sparse tonal language to be seen as a limitation, restraint on Rore’s part, or is it simply a natural, genre-specific style?
Pärt:
- Relation to the later passion genre
- Expressive aesthetics, determined by meaning(/significance),
- even though it is done in a seemingly objective, non-expressive style
- Available on CD – almost only on CD, in one canonical version: combines the singularity of a painting with the multiplicity of a musical work (cf. Goodman) and the ‘mega-multiplicity’ of the mass-produced, commercial CD market.
- No functional connection
- The style is a counter-style, which thus consciously relates to an aesthetical discourse, not an established, functionally determined, and hence ‘free’ from meaning (e.g. free from the burden of having to mean something other than what is already in the text and the liturgy).
Motifs
- Religious and secular – which is which?
- Is Rore’s religious tonal language different from his secular in the same way(s) as Pärt’s differs from his secular contemporaries?
- Can Pärt’s Passion be seen as a religious work (again: in the same way as Rore’s)?
- Aesthetics and ritual (i.e. aesthetics in ritual and the rituality of aesthetics)
- Historical distance and nearness – is the similarity between the two works deceptive or “substantial” (Theme: the concomitant remoteness and immediacy of historical materials as a historiographical challenge)?
- Meaning: musical style, i.e. a tonal language, i.e. the technical means at the composer’s disposal through which he can formulate a meaning (in a sense derived from Wittgenstein/Austin/et al.).