[Kreisler jr]

Music for Lent, Holy Week and Passion

As Lent in Western Christendom begins today on Ash Wednesday, I thought I might try to listen to ALL the music for this time I have.

I made a preliminary list below I am of course aware that there is much more and I could add some stuff from youtube or such sources (e.g. I do have only one of Schütz's Passions and only a minor setting by Telemann and there are other gaps). But it seems enough that it is already unlikely that I will cover everything. That's also the reason I'll leave out pieces like Handel's Messiah or Liszt's Christus. And I will usually not listen to more than one recording, even if I have several (like with Bach's Passions).
I will go roughly in chronological order scattered over the whole period of Lent, otherwise I'd need to listen 24/7 during Holy Week...

Tallis: Lamentations

White: Lamentations

Lassus: Lamentations

Palestrina: Stabat mater

Byrd: St. John's Passion

Schütz: St. Luke Passion, 7 last words

Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri

Charpentier: Lecons de Tenebres

Steffani: Stabat mater

A. Scarlatti: Lamentationes, St. John's Passion, Stabat mater

Couperin: Lecons de Tenebres

Vivaldi: Stabat mater

Telemann: Matthäus-Passion 1754 (there are more but it seems the only one I have)

Durante: Lamentationes

Händel: Brockes-Passion, Johannespassion (probably by Böhm or another contemporary but still listed as GFH)

Bach: Johannespassion, Matthäuspassion, (Markuspassion), Cantatas

D. Scarlatti: Stabat Mater

Stölzel: Brockes-Passion

Pergolesi: Stabat Mater

Haydn: Stabat mater, 7 last words

Beethoven: Christus am Ölberg

Rossini: Stabat mater

Liszt: Via Crucis

Dvorak: Stabat mater

Szymanowski: Stabat mater

 

[Kreisler jr]

This is of course not exclusive. Anyone can post his listening or comment as long as it's on topic

Thomas Tallis: Lamentations of Jeremiah, Pro Cantione Antiqua, B. Turner

 

[Philidor]

Thank you very much for starting this thread!

Let me add some music.

There are the Penitential Psalms that are sung in penitential periods such as lent - Orlando di Lasso composed the best known set, but there are settings by Byrd and Andrea Gabrieli. Individual psalms such as "Miserere" or "De profundis" have been composed by Allegri, Josquin Desprez, Bach and Liszt. - Schnittke's "Psalms of Repentance" are rather paraliturgic, their texts come from the 16th century.

Then we find the Responsoria pro hebdomada sancta - Tomás Luis de Victoria, Gesualdo, Zelenka, Johann Michael Haydn.

Another composed texts are the Hieremiae prophetae lamentationes - Orlando di Lasso, Durante, Genzmer.

Modern passions among many others: Pärt (St. John), Rihm ("Deus Passus"), Penderecki (St. Luke), Frank Martin ("Golgotha"), Gubaidulina (St. John).

 

[Kreisler jr]

I thought of including penitential psalms but did not in the first list I made. I think I will include some, especially of composers not or not so well represented yet.

Some additions, also pieces I forgot or found going through the shelves again:

Allegri: Miserere
Bruhns: De profundis
Weckmann: Wie liegt die Stadt so wüste [German setting from Lamentations]
Zelenka: Miserere, De profundis [There is some passion music by Zelenka, but I don't own it]

Verdi: Stabat mater (from 4 pezzi sacri)
Stravinsky: Threni (i.e. Lamentations)
Krenek: Lamentations

 

[hammeredklavier]

Johann Adolf Hasse Miserere in D minor

Miserere in C minor

Miserere in E minor

Responsoria pro hebdomada sancta - Johann Michael Haydn.

In sabbato sancto, MH 278

In coena Domini, MH 276

In parasceve, MH 277

 

[hammeredklavier]

In coena Domini ad missam, MH 628: No. 2, Christus factus est

Alleluia! Laudate pueri

Sequentia ad festum S.P. Augustini (De profundis tenebrarum)

De profundis

Beatus vir

 

[Kreisler jr]

another disc with Lamentation settings. I think the Tallis is justifiedly among the most famous of that time. I also prefer the sound of Pro Cantione antiqua to the larger mixed ensemble more distantly recorded on Naxos but it's also a nice disc overall.

 

[Rogerx]

Brilliant classics use to have a very nice box, containing:
Pasquini, B: Hor ch’il Ciel fra densi horrori
Pasquini, B: Padre, Signore e Dio
Sturla: Passio di Venerdi Santo
Telemann: Passion Oratorio 'Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele', TWV 5:2
Perhaps with a bit of searching........
Good luck

 

[Kreisler jr]

Palestrina: Stabat mater (Pro cantione antiqua)

Allegri: Miserere (Tallis scholars)

 

[RICK RIEKERT]

There's James Macmillan's compelling masterpiece Seven Last Words from the Cross.

 

[Helgi]

New from The Gesualdo Six, Tallis and Gesualdo:

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68348

 

[Kreisler jr]

Michael Praetorius: Aus tiefer Not (De Profundis) à 4, Huelgas Ensemble, van Nevel

A rather simple chorale setting from the early 17th century.

 

[Helgi]

Yesterday I listened to James MacMillan's Triduum, an Easter triptych:
I. The World's Ransoming, an English horn concerto
II. Cello concerto
III. Symphony "Vigil"

 

[ansfelden]

Alessandro Scarlatti - St. John Passion, René Jacobs, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis

 

[Helgi]

Listening to more Easter-related MacMillan (I have a stack of his CDs on loan from the library this week).

Visitatio Sepulchri for chorus and chamber orchestra.

... a setting of a medieval liturgical drama which describes the scene from the New Testament where three women go to visit the Holy Sepulchre on the day after Christ's crucifixion, and learn that he has risen from the dead.

 

[Philidor]

Without being too pedantic: Easter music is not exactly music for lent ... ... one could even say, it is just the opposite ...

 

[Kreisler jr]

St. John's Passion by Byrd. The Cardinall's Musick, Andrew Carwood (ASV)

This is very minimalist compared to later baroque passion music.
While it does have separate singers for Christ and some of the others and choir for the crowd, most of it is basically a newsreel in Latin by the evangelist singer. The turbae are also very mild, if one has Bach or similar high/late baroque music. The brief beautiful Plorans Plorabit (it should be ploravit in the usual lamentations text) at the beginning of the disc seems to fit Byrd's style much better).

 

[Helgi]

Without being too pedantic: Easter music is not exactly music for lent ... ... one could even say, it is just the opposite ...

Yes, but:

Music for Lent, Holy Week and Passion

The Triduum triptych is mostly within Lent. In my mind Easter denotes all of this, but maybe I need to go back to Bible school

 

[Kreisler jr]

Steffani: Stabat Mater (Leonhardt)

Not quite as impressive as Pergolesi or A. Scarlatti but a solid baroque setting with more variety (tenor, bass,choir) than the famous soprano/alto settings.

A. Scarlatti St. John's Passion (Näf, Jacobs, Basel)

Despite closer to Bach in time this is still close to the "old style", i.e. no full oratorio with arias etc., only the Gospel narrative with evangelist, turbae, Christ, Pilate etc. It features Jacobs in still fresh voice as evangelist (nevertheless an alto narrator needs getting used to) and an interpretation that seems otherwise still a bit prae-HIP with forces of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, despite apparently recorded in the 1981.

 

[Kreisler jr]

I am probably not going to listen to all of my list..

anyway, today:

Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri (Gardiner)