CANCELLED: St Matthew Passion

When the Good Friday congregation in St Thomas’s Church, Leipzig, spent an hour or so on the hard wooden benches in 1727 to hear a setting of the Mass, they were probably a little surprised to see two choirs and several soloists plus a small instrumental ensemble climbing up to the different galleries in the nave to give the first public performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s »St Matthew Passion«. Bach had actually promised not to »disrupt« the services of worship any more with his works, but he ended up breaking his promise once again. The congregation then spent two-and-a-half hours listening to all the expression and rigour with which Bach tells the tale in music of Christ’s agonising death and of the other characters involved in the Passion – Judas, St Peter and Pontius Pilate. In the week before Easter, the Elbphilharmonie audience has the chance to hear this magnificent score in an equally imposing setting, albeit on more comfortable seats!