Touching the souls of those who listen

For a number of years now the National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have performed one or other of Bach’s Passions on Good Friday afternoon at the National Concert Hall. This year brings something a little different in the form of Scottish composer James MacMillan’s setting of the passion section of the Gospel of St John.
MacMillan’s is a lengthy piece lasting roughly about an hour and a half and will be receiving its first Irish performance on Good Friday afternoon at the National Concert Hall with the NSO and Chorus. The conductor will be David Hall with soloist – the composer calls for just one – baritone Christopher Purves, who sings the role of the Christus. Besides the National Symphony Chorus, which is principally acting as ‘the crowd’, Chamber Choir Ireland takes the part of the others, notably Peter and Pilate, in St John’s narrative.
James MacMillan (born in 1959) is a prolific composer whose works cover a range of musical genres. A devout Catholic, he studied at Edinburgh and Durham Universities. He lectured for a while at Manchester University before returning to Scotland and settling in Glasgow. He has been featured composer at the Edinburgh Festival (1993 and 2019), composer/conductor with the BBC Philharmonic between 2000 and 2009 and principal guest conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Philharmonic.
MacMillan’s international career had been launched at the BBC Proms in 1990.
His percussion concerto, Veni, Veni, Immanuel, was written for the Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie in 1992 and it has received over 500 performances worldwide. The London Symphony Orchestra commissioned a triptych of works from him in the 2000s but there were also other commissions – a cello concerto for the great Russian artist Mstislav Rostropovich, a symphonic work Vigil and Quickening for vocal ensemble.
His three-act opera The Sacrifice, written immediately before the St John Passion for the Welsh National Opera, was a co-commission from the LSO, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Boston Symphony and the Berlin Radio Choir. The piece had its first performance under the baton of Colin Davis, a musician greatly admitted by MacMillan, in September 2007. The St John Passion dates from the following year. It is dedicated to Colin Davis
Writing in The Guardian some time ago musicologist Kate Molleson maintained “the music’s uncompromising impact sits in the contrast of harmonies that move in and out of clarity; Gregorian chants underscored by menacing dissonance; Latin motets laced with squealing woodwinds then dissolving into bombastic affirmation from brass and timpani.”
MacMillan likens the Latin passages to the chorales that Bach inserted into his passion settings, a chance for the listener to sit back and reflect for a moment. But MacMillan leaves little space for reflection. Every note of this score is invested with deep-felt didactic meaning.