church music

A Pretty Short Introduction to J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion

A Pretty Short Introduction to J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion

J.S. Bach (1685-1750) wrote his St. Matthew Passion in 1727 for the Good Friday service at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, where he was Kapellmeister (Director of Music). Scored for two orchestras, two choirs, and soloists, this piece tells the story of Christ’s passion in the manner of an oratorio or unstaged opera, with different singers representing different characters in the Passion narrative—much like we do when we read the Passion together on Good Friday here at Ascension.

Isaac Watts, "The Father of English Hymnody"

Isaac Watts, "The Father of English Hymnody"

When congregational singing developed in England in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, Thomas Cranmer and other English reformers took less inspiration from the hymn-singing Lutherans, and more from the exclusive psalm-singing Calvinists. English dedication to psalmody was strengthened in the wake of Mary I’s reign. A devout Catholic, she attempted to bring the Church of England, founded by her father Henry VIII, back under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Many English Protestants fled to Calvinist countries like the Netherlands to escape persecution, and when they eventually returned to England, they brought back the Calvinist singing tradition of metrical psalm texts, sung to short, memorable tunes.