The Judas Passion
Composer Sally Beamish talks to the Friend about her latest work
The Passion story is told for the first time from the perspective of Judas Iscariot in a new work for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: The Judas Passion.
Sally Beamish, who is a member of Glasgow Meeting, has composed the music and she explains that her Quaker background played an important part in her thinking when she approached the commission.
The idea that ‘to understand all is to forgive all’ and the Quaker phrase ‘there is that of God in everyone’ were, she says, central: ‘I wanted to look at certain questions. What is unforgiveable? Who can be forgiven and who not? What motivates us to behave as we do, and to what extent do we all follow the callings of our own heart – or the callings of whatever voice we choose to name?’
‘Judas’, she says, ‘has been portrayed throughout history as a “traitor” and his story prompted the question of forgiveness for me. My father was a Quaker and he instilled in me Quaker ideas. Judas did what he did for a reason. We will never know. In the story we are told in the Bible he felt called – but was he called by God or the devil? Was it money? But he gave the thirty pieces of silver back. He suffered remorse. He killed himself. So, why has he not been forgiven? He has become Judas the Jew and the scapegoat.’
The Judas Passion draws on fragments of music from Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion, which Sally Beamish has developed in her own language, and the commission gave her an opportunity to incorporate new sounds into the baroque instruments of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. It prompted, for example, her collaboration with artist John Creed, a fellow Quaker from Glasgow Meeting.
She explains: ‘In terms of percussion I had this idea of making a “Judas Chime” that would make a lot of noise and reflect the thirty pieces of silver. I worked with John, who is a metal sculptor, in his workshop creating different kinds of sounds. He made a prototype that was constructed in London. I was creative with percussion and there are also drums from North Africa. The challenge, for me as a composer, was to find a “sound world” for the piece.
‘I concentrate on texture and atmosphere. The orchestra play on baroque instruments and I have worked with their distinctive musical colours: the fragile, glassy sound of strings, the lyrical beauty of the flutes, the open, raw natural horns and trumpets and delicate tracery of harpsichord and lute.’
Sally Beamish says that composing The Judas Passion was a multi-faceted process but returns from talking about music to the central theme of forgiveness: ‘The work asks questions. Surely, if a central theme of Christianity is forgiveness, then why has Judas not been forgiven? In one section a counter-tenor and a baritone sing in unison. There is not one voice because one represents God and the other the devil. I thought it would be good to put two voices together.’
‘The commission has been very interesting for me, as a composer, because I had the opportunity to explore a new sound world. It has been a new departure. I hope people will come away with new sounds in their heads. I hope I have created a very distinctive sound world.
‘Above all, though, I hope those questions concerning forgiveness will be in the minds of the audience.’
Further information: A semi-staged production of The Judas Passion will be premiered at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden on Sunday 24 September and in London at St John’s Smith Square on Monday 25 September.
Comments
I’d love to be able to hear this.
I cannot forget the first time in the ‘seventies when I put on the vinyl disc Jesus Christ Superstar:
Carl Anderson’s words filled my little flat and I was whacked by the emotional dynamite which rocked me, then as today,
when I click on this link:
By andavane on 14th September 2017 - 19:38
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