3rd Metropol Concert

Mannheimer Rosengarten

EPSG:4326

About Wounds – Passion Concert

Museum Ludwig

Two great Passion settings by Johann Sebastian Bach, the St. Matthew Passion and the St. John Passion, are considered to be among the cornerstones of western music. Another, following the Gospel of Mark, has remained lost to the day. How might it have sounded? Over the past decades, many experts have attempted to reconstruct the St. Mark Passion. While this initially may seem like the search for sunken Atlantis, the philosopher’s stone, or the Holy Grail, from the perspective of musical practice it is actually not so different from what Bach himself did on a regular basis: creative secondary use. Many of his chorales or arias can be spotted more than once in his catalogue of works – usually with a different text and sometimes in an entirely different context. This baroque practice is known as musical parody, and it works both ways: Ton Koopman, one of the world’s foremost Bach performers, decided to start over: In tireless research, he examined works by the great master, trying to find out whether they might serve as musical setting for the words of Mark’s Gospel.

Wounds

Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, premiered in Frankfurt in 1937, is a work that still works. It is music for mundane medieval texts, quite juicy in places: the carnal relationships are not hidden. Translations of the songs, which are mostly in Latin, were handed out before the premiere, and the young people must have been somewhat embarrassed. Orff's music is effective because he has both a sense of melody and rhythm with the use of percussion, which Orff often used. It was during the Nazi rule that Carmina Burana was premiered, and the critics did not quite agree: the focus on rhythm was considered "primitive", the lyrics were daring, but the work was also popular and accepted in its time. Orff's own relationship with the regime has since been discussed. He himself was most interested in getting his music out. Carmina Burana is an effective example of that.

Elisabeth Breuer

Events

Past events

May 8, 2025

3rd Metropol Concert · Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz

Apr 18, 2025

About Wounds – Passion Concert · Kölner Philharmonie

Future and recently performed repertoire

Singer in St Mark Passion by Bach

Kölner Philharmonie

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