From Ashes to Light
This Lent, I decided to create a musical companion for the season: a curated week-by-week collection of classical and sacred works to focus on from Ash Wednesday through Easter. I should say upfront that I’m not a classical music scholar by any stretch, although I am lifelong listener and appreciator of it, and I know what’s moved me over the years.
What I’ve put together here is partly a listening journey and partly a self-education mini-course for my own learning. I started with pieces I already know and love, and then filled in the gaps with help from Wikipedia, ChatGPT, Claude, Google, and a few other resources along the way. What’s emerged is a curated musical journey that I hope will deepen my, and perhaps your, experience of this season.
Ash Wednesday & Week 1
Theme: Mortality, Humility, Ashes & Exposure
Gregorio Allegri — Miserere mei, Deus
You may recognize the Latin as “Have mercy on me, O God” as the opening petition of Psalm 51. This piece is a musical setting of the Psalm, famously set by Allegri for the Sistine Chapel. Interestingly, it was forbidden to be performed outside the chapel by the Vatican until a young Mozart transcribed it from memory after hearing it. It is a polyphonic setting, spacious, suspended, almost architectural. It has a corporate feel, the Church confessing together. We’ll encounter another version of this piece again next week with Josquin des Prez’s composition.
This 1980 recording by Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars brought Allegri’s Miserere to a wide modern audience. Phillips founded the Oxford-based ensemble (named after composer Thomas Tallis) in 1973 and they specialize in sacred choral music from the 15th and 16th centuries. Below is the Latin Vulgate text used in the Roman liturgy along with the English translation.
| Latin Vulgate | English |
| Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam; Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam. Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea, et a peccato meo munda me. Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea, et a peccato meo munda me. Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci; ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris. Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum, et in peccatis concepit me mater mea. Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti; incerta et occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi. Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor; lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor. Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam; et exsultabunt ossa humiliata. Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis, et omnes iniquitates meas dele. Cor mundum crea in me, Deus; et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis. Ne projicias me a facie tua; et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me. Redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui; et spiritu principali confirma me. Docebo iniquos vias tuas; et impii ad te convertentur. Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus salutis meae; et exsultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam. Domine, labia mea aperies; et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam. Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium, dedissem utique; holocaustis non delectaberis. Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus; cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies. Benigne fac, Domine, in bona voluntate tua Sion; ut aedificentur muri Jerusalem. Tunc acceptabis sacrificium justitiae, oblationes et holocausta; tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos. | Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy; And according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my iniquity. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. Against You only have I sinned, And done what is evil in Your sight; So that You are justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being; And in the hidden part You make me know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness; That the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall return to You. Deliver me from bloodguilt, O God, God of my salvation; And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips; And my mouth shall declare Your praise. For You do not delight in sacrifice, else I would give it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Do good to Zion in Your good pleasure; Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices, In burnt offerings and whole offerings; Then bulls shall be offered on Your altar. |
Arvo Pärt — Spiegel im Spiegel (“mirror in the mirror“)
A single unfolding meditation for violin (or cello) and piano. Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer and this piece sonically represents the infinite reflections of two mirrors facing each other. It is deep and meditative, with no climax or drama. Just mirrored simplicity. It clears interior noise and forces stillness. I love this piece!
J.S. Bach — Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor (Prelude)
Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5 actually as 7 parts, but for Ash Wednesday we’re just focusing on the dark, searching, and harmonically unsettled prelude. There are a number of notable compositions of this piece and I’m including the Rostropovich performance which is dark, searching, and somewhat turbulent. Yo Yo Ma has done multiple recordings which are worth a listen and other, more historically informed performances are available by Pieter Wispelwey and Anner Bylsma, all available on Spotify.
Week 2
Theme: Confession & Interior Examination
This week turns inward with less atmosphere and more of a spirit of examination.
Bach’s Cantata 38 – Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (“Out of the depths I cry to You“) is based almost entirely on Martin Luther’s German paraphrase of Psalm 130 (“De Profundis”). Written in 1724 for the 21st Sunday after Trinity, it is one of Bach’s most austere chorale cantatas, perfectly aligned with a Lenten posture of repentance and hope. Below are the original German texts along with English translations:
| I. Chorus | |
| German (Luther’s Chorale, Stanza 1) Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, Herr Gott, erhör mein Rufen; Dein gnädig Ohren kehr zu mir Und meiner Bitt sie öffnen; Denn so du willst das sehen an, Was Sünd und Unrecht ist getan, Wer kann, Herr, vor dir bleiben? | English Translation Out of deep distress I cry to You, Lord God, hear my call; Turn Your gracious ear toward me And open it to my plea. For if You would mark Sin and wrongdoing, Who, Lord, could stand before You? |
| II. Recitative (Tenor) | |
| German In Jesu Gnade wird allein Der Trost vor uns und die Vergebung sein, Weil durch des Satans Trug und List Der Menschen ganzes Leben Vor Gott ein Sündengreuel ist. Was könnte nun die Geistesschwachheit geben, Dem frommen Sinn, Der redlich ringt und kämpft um sein Gewissen? Was? Wenn der Richter selbst es will verstoßen. | English Translation In Jesus’ grace alone Will comfort and forgiveness be found, For through Satan’s deceit and cunning All human life Is an abomination of sin before God. What then can spiritual weakness offer To the devout mind That honestly struggles and wrestles with its conscience? What, if the Judge Himself rejects it? |
| III. Aria (Soprano) | |
| German Ich höre mitten in den Leiden Ein Trostwort, so mein Jesus spricht. Drum, o geängstigte Gewissen, Vertraue deines Gottes Huld; Sein Wort wird dir gewiss erfüllen Die ewge Gnadenfülle. | English Translation In the midst of suffering I hear a word of comfort that my Jesus speaks. Therefore, O troubled conscience, Trust in your God’s mercy; His word will surely grant you The fullness of eternal grace. |
| IV. Recitative (Bass) | |
| German Ach! dass mein Glaube noch so schwach, Und dass ich meine Zuversicht Auf nichts als Gottes Gnade setze! Wie zaget mein Gemüte doch! Wie zweifelt meine Hoffnung noch! O Herr, stärke mich! | English Translation Ah! That my faith is still so weak, And that I place my confidence On nothing but God’s grace! How timid my spirit is! How my hope still doubts! O Lord, strengthen me! |
| V. Chorale | |
| German (Final Stanza of Luther’s Chorale) Ob bei uns ist der Sünden viel, Bei Gott ist viel mehr Gnade; Sein Hand zu helfen hat kein Ziel, Wie groß auch sei der Schaden. Er ist allein der gute Hirt, Der Israel erlösen wird Aus seinen Sünden allen. | English Translation Though our sins are many, With God there is much more grace; His hand to help knows no limit, However great the harm. He alone is the Good Shepherd Who will redeem Israel From all its sins. |
Josquin des Prez – Miserere mei, Deus
Unlike Allegri’s spacious setting, Josquin’s is focused and insistent. The repeated “Miserere” (“Have mercy on me, O God”) is a personal pleading. It’s less corporate, more kneeling alone before the Lord.
Henryk Górecki – Symphony No. 3 (Movement II)
Henryk Górecki was a Polish composer who lived through the Second World War as a child and came of age in communist Poland, a biography that left deep marks on his music. His Symphony No. 3, subtitled the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, was composed in 1976 but largely unknown outside Poland until a 1992 recording with soprano Dawn Upshaw became an unlikely classical phenomenon, selling over a million copies. For a symphony, that is almost unheard of.
Movement II sets an inscription found scratched into the wall of a Gestapo cell in Zakopane, Poland, written by an eighteen-year-old girl named Helena. It reads as a prayer: Oh Mama do not weep – Heaven and the stars will remain. She was not a theologian or a poet. She was a teenager, alone and afraid, reaching for God with whatever words she had.
For a week of confession and interior examination, this is exactly right. Confession is the soul stripped down, speaking honestly from a place of need. This movement is that. Slow, intimate, and without pretense. It does not resolve neatly. It simply speaks, and trusts that it has been heard.
Week 3
Theme: The Cost of Love.
Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Latin hymn that meditates on Mary standing at the foot of the cross while Jesus is crucified. The hymn invites the listener not merely to observe the crucifixion, but to enter into it emotionally and spiritually, to feel grief, compassion, and ultimately union with Christ through suffering. It is one of the most frequently set sacred texts in Western music. This week, we’ll listen to 2 compositions, one 18th century (Pergolesi) and one modern (Pärt).
Pergolesi – Stabat Mater
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater is known for its intense, personal emotionality and operatic lyricism, which stands in sharp contrast to the austere, minimalist approach of modern versions like Arvo Pärt’s
Arvo Pärt – Stabat Mater
Where Pergolesi is emotional, Pärt is austere. Both versions use the same medieval text, but Pärt’s tends toward spiritual detachment, silence, and austerity.
Below is the traditional 20-stanza Latin text of Stabat Mater, followed by an English translation. The hymn is in three-line stanzas (tercets) and is typically sung straight through in musical settings.
| Stanza 1 | |
| Stabat mater dolorosa Juxta crucem lacrimosa, Dum pendebat Filius. | The sorrowful Mother was standing Weeping beside the Cross While her Son hung there. |
| Stanza 2 | |
| Cuius animam gementem, Contristatam et dolentem Pertransivit gladius. | Through her grieving soul, Sorrowful and afflicted, A sword had passed. |
| Stanza 3 | |
| O quam tristis et afflicta Fuit illa benedicta Mater Unigeniti! | O how sad and distressed Was that blessed Mother of the Only-Begotten! |
| Stanza 4 | |
| Quae maerebat et dolebat, Pia Mater, dum videbat Nati poenas incliti. | She mourned and grieved, The faithful Mother, as she saw The sufferings of her glorious Son. |
| Stanza 5 | |
| Quis est homo qui non fleret, Matrem Christi si videret In tanto supplicio? | Who is the person who would not weep If he saw the Mother of Christ In such torment? |
| Stanza 6 | |
| Quis non posset contristari Piam Matrem contemplari Dolentem cum Filio? | Who could not be moved to sorrow Beholding the pious Mother Suffering with her Son? |
| Stanza 7 | |
| Pro peccatis suae gentis Vidit Iesum in tormentis Et flagellis subditum. | For the sins of His people She saw Jesus in torment And subjected to scourging. |
| Stanza 8 | |
| Vidit suum dulcem Natum Moriendo desolatum Dum emisit spiritum. | She saw her sweet Son Forsaken as He died While He gave up His spirit. |
| Stanza 9 | |
| Eia Mater, fons amoris, Me sentire vim doloris Fac, ut tecum lugeam. | O Mother, fountain of love, Make me feel the power of sorrow, That I may grieve with you. |
| Stanza 10 | |
| Fac ut ardeat cor meum In amando Christum Deum Ut sibi complaceam. | Grant that my heart may burn In loving Christ my God So that I may please Him. |
| Stanza 11 | |
| Sancta Mater, istud agas, Crucifixi fige plagas Cordi meo valide. | Holy Mother, grant this: Imprint the wounds of the Crucified Deeply in my heart. |
| Stanza 12 | |
| Tui Nati vulnerati, Tam dignati pro me pati, Poenas mecum divide. | Of your wounded Son, Who so willingly suffered for me, Let me share in His pain. |
| Stanza 13 | |
| Fac me tecum pie flere, Crucifixo condolere, Donec ego vixero. | Let me weep devoutly with you, Suffer with the Crucified, As long as I live. |
| Stanza 14 | |
| Iuxta crucem tecum stare, Et me tibi sociare In planctu desidero. | To stand beside the Cross with you And join you In your lament, I desire. |
| Stanza 15 | |
| Virgo virginum praeclara, Mihi iam non sis amara, Fac me tecum plangere. | O Virgin, most renowned of virgins, Be not bitter toward me, Let me mourn with you. |
| Stanza 16 | |
| Fac ut portem Christi mortem, Passionis fac consortem, Et plagas recolere. | Grant that I may bear the death of Christ, Share in His Passion, And remember His wounds. |
| Stanza 17 | |
| Fac me plagis vulnerari, Cruce hac inebriari, Ob amorem Filii. | Let me be wounded with His wounds, Intoxicated by the Cross For love of your Son. |
| Stanza 18 | |
| Inflammatus et accensus, Per te, Virgo, sim defensus In die iudicii. | Enkindled and inflamed, Through you, O Virgin, may I be defended On the day of judgment. |
| Stanza 19 | |
| Fac me cruce custodiri, Morte Christi praemuniri, Confoveri gratia. | Let me be guarded by the Cross, Fortified by Christ’s death, And cherished by grace. |
| Stanza 20 | |
| Quando corpus morietur, Fac ut animae donetur Paradisi gloria. Amen. | When my body dies, Grant that my soul may be given The glory of paradise. Amen. |
Samuel Barber – Adagio for Strings
This piece was originally the slow movement of his String Quartet (Op. 11), later arranged for string orchestra in 1936. The orchestral version is what we know today. It was championed early by Arturo Toscanini, and over time it became associated with national mourning, played after presidential deaths, during memorials, in moments of collective sorrow.
My GenX readers will recognize this piece from Oliver Stone’s 1986 film Platoon, used during the scene when Willem Dafoe’s character, Sgt. Elias dies.
Meditate on this piece devotionally, and listen for:
- The patience of the opening
- The gradual tightening of harmony, hear the sorrow intensify almost imperceptibly
- The climax, where the dissonance that feels almost too exposed.
- The silence afterward is where the piece does its deepest work.
Week 4
Theme: Approaching Jerusalem
If our earlier weeks have been about interior work (confession, grief, contemplation) Part I of Bach’s St. John Passion marks a shift. We are no longer sitting still in meditative contemplation. Our lenten narrative has begun to move with force.
Bach – St. John Passion (Part I)
Bach completed the St. John Passion in 1724, setting the Passion account from John’s Gospel for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. John’s account is distinctive among the four Gospels: it is theologically charged, confrontational in tone, and unflinching. Jesus in John is not a victim of circumstance, he is sovereign even in his arrest and trial. That quality comes through in Bach’s setting. The opening chorus, Herr, unser Herrscher (“Lord, our Sovereign”), is not mournful, rather it is almost defiant, a declaration of Christ’s paradoxical glory hidden in suffering.
Part I follows the arrest of Jesus in the garden, Peter’s three denials, and the opening of his trial before Pilate. The music moves between different modes of telling: a solo voice narrates the story, other voices step forward to reflect on what it means, and then periodically the whole ensemble lands on a simple hymn. Don’t worry about following every word. Instead, let the shifts in texture guide you.
Tomás Luis de Victoria – Tenebrae Responsories
Tenebrae (Latin for “darkness” or “shadows”) is an ancient Christian Holy Week service, dating back at least 1,000 years, that commemorates the passion and death of Jesus. Services are held on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, and feature the gradual extinguishing of candles, symbolizing the fading light of Christ, followed by a strepitus (loud noise) representing the earthquake and closing of the tomb. It is a, reflective, somber, and often silent, service designed to immerse participants in the suffering of Jesus.
If Bach’s Passions narrate the crucifixion, Victoria’s Tenebrae Responsories inhabit the darkness around it. A responsory is a liturgical form in which a main text is sung, a repeated refrain responds, a verse is inserted, and the refrain returns. I suggest you listen to it in low light, ideally candlelight, meditating on the text below (Latin with English translations):
Maundy Thursday
| I. In monte Oliveti | |
| In monte Oliveti oravit ad Patrem: Pater, si fieri potest, transeat a me calix iste: Spiritus quidem promptus est, Caro autem infirma. Fiat voluntas tua. | On the Mount of Olives He prayed to the Father: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. The spirit indeed is willing, But the flesh is weak. Thy will be done. |
| II. Tristis est anima mea | |
| Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem: Sustinete hic et vigilate mecum. Iam videbitis turbam, quae circumdabit me; Vos fugam capietis, Et ego vadam immolari pro vobis. | My soul is sorrowful even unto death: Remain here and watch with me. Soon you will see the crowd that will surround me; You will flee, And I will go to be sacrificed for you. |
| III. Tenebrae factae sunt | |
| Tenebrae factae sunt, Dum crucifixissent Iesum Iudaei: Et circa horam nonam exclamavit Iesus voce magna: Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti? Et inclinato capite emisit spiritum. | Darkness fell When the Jews had crucified Jesus: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice: My God, why have You forsaken me? And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. |
Good Friday
| IV. Caligaverunt oculi mei | |
| Caligaverunt oculi mei a fletu meo: Quia elongatus est a me qui consolabatur me. Videte omnes populi Si est dolor sicut dolor meus. | My eyes are darkened with weeping: For he who comforted me is far from me. Behold, all you peoples, If there is any sorrow like my sorrow. |
| V. O vos omnes | |
| O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, Attendite et videte Si est dolor sicut dolor meus. | O all you who pass by the way, Look and see If there is any sorrow like my sorrow. |
| VI. Recessit pastor noster | |
| Recessit pastor noster, Fons aquae vivae; Ad cuius transitum sol obscuratus est. Nam et ille captus est Qui captivum tenebat primum hominem. | Our shepherd has departed, The fountain of living water; At whose passing the sun was darkened. For he was taken captive Who had held the first man captive. |
Holy Saturday
| VII. Sepulto Domino | |
| Sepulto Domino, signatum est monumentum, Volventes lapidem ad ostium monumenti: Ponentes milites qui custodirent illum. | When the Lord was buried, the tomb was sealed, Rolling a stone to the entrance of the tomb; They placed soldiers to guard Him. |
| VIII. Plange quasi virgo | |
| Plange quasi virgo, plebs mea, Ululate pastores in cinere et cilicio: Quia veniet dies Domini magna et amara valde. | Weep like a virgin, my people, Wail, shepherds, in ashes and sackcloth: For the great and exceedingly bitter day of the Lord is coming. |
| IX. Jerusalem, surge | |
| Jerusalem, surge et exue te vestibus iucunditatis; Indue cinere et cilicio: Quia venit super te dies Domini magna et amara valde. | Jerusalem, arise and cast off your garments of joy; Clothe yourself in ashes and sackcloth: For upon you comes the great and exceedingly bitter day of the Lord. |
Arvo Pärt – Passio
Pärt’s Passio, composed in 1982, sets the same Passion account from John’s Gospel that Bach used, but the two works are very different. Where Bach dramatizes, Pärt witnesses. The piece is built on his signature “tintinnabuli” method, pairing a simple melody with bell-like harmonic tones, creating a sound that is radically spare and unhurried. Every word – the arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial – is delivered at the same quiet pace, with the same restraint.
For the listener unaccustomed to this kind of music, resist the urge to wait for something to happen. This piece rewards a the kind of attention you might bring to sitting quietly in an empty church, or watching light move slowly across a wall. Let it be slow and sparse. By the time it ends, you may find the stillness has done more work than you expected.
Palm Sunday through Maundy Thursday
Theme: Betrayal & Surrender
Bach – St. Matthew Passion (Part I)
Johann Sebastian Bach completed the St. Matthew Passion in 1727, and it remains one of the most ambitious choral works ever written: nearly three hours, two full choirs, two orchestras, two organs, and a third choir of boys singing from the organ loft. The sheer scale of it is not incidental. Bach understood that what happened in Jerusalem required the fullest possible human voice.
Where the St. John Passion (which we encountered in Week 4) is confrontational and charged with theological urgency, the St. Matthew Passion is suffused with grief. John’s Jesus is sovereign. Matthew’s Jesus mourns. He sweats in Gethsemane. He asks if the cup can pass from him. That shift in emotional register shapes everything in Bach’s setting.
Part I moves through the anointing at Bethany, the Last Supper, Gethsemane, and the arrest. The music is not hurried. The betrayal unfolds slowly, with an almost unbearable inevitability.
The most famous single movement in the entire work is the alto aria Erbarme dich (“Have mercy”), which arrives after Peter’s third denial. It is accompanied by a solo violin of extraordinary tenderness, and it is one of those pieces of music that seems to locate something in the human chest and hold it without relief.
I selected the Bernstein recording for my playlist, which is probably not the version Bach scholars would chose, but after numerous selections in Latin and German, this one has the benefit of English text and enables listeners to follow the narrative directly. Note that it’s slightly abridged from Bach’s original composition. Bernstein also has some commentary on the album, which I didn’t include but you can easily link over to the album in Spotify.
Maurice Duruflé – Ubi Caritas
Maundy Thursday takes its name from mandatum novum, the “new commandment” Jesus gives at the Last Supper: love one another as I have loved you. Duruflé’s setting of the ancient antiphon Ubi Caritas (“Where charity and love are, God is there”) is the musical embodiment of that moment. It is one of the most luminous pieces of sacred choral music in the twentieth-century repertoire.
Maurice Duruflé was a French organist and composer whose choral output was small but exquisite. His Ubi Caritas draws on Gregorian chant roots while inhabiting an entirely modern harmonic language. The result is music that feels old and new at once. It does not strain for effect, it simply shines.
Thomas Tallis – Lamentations of Jeremiah
Thomas Tallis composed his Lamentations of Jeremiah in the mid-sixteenth century, setting the opening verses of the Book of Lamentations. The timing for Holy Week is not coincidental. The early church read Lamentations as a prefiguring of the Passion: the fallen city as the broken body, the abandoned streets as the abandoned disciple.
What makes Tallis’s setting so devastating is its restraint. This is polyphony stripped down to its emotional core. The voices move in long, interlocking lines that seem to hold the grief rather than release it. There is no drama or climax here, only sustained, almost architectural sorrow. The Hebrew letters that open each verse (Aleph, Beth, Gimel…) are set as small melodic gestures at the start of each section, ancient markers of a lament that never fully resolves.
For the listener, this is music that asks nothing of you except presence. Let it be somber. Let it be slow. Holy Week should not feel rushed. Sit with the tension.
Good Friday & Holy Saturday
Theme: Rupture. Silence. Waiting.
Good Friday is not a day for background music. If you have been following this pilgrimage since Ash Wednesday, you arrive here having moved through confession, grief, the cost of love, and the slow unraveling of Holy Week.
Holy Saturday is the most theologically disorienting day of the Church year. The tomb is sealed. There are no services, no rituals, no comfort of routine. In the ancient church this was a day of silent waiting and sitting with the full weight of a world where the resurrection had not yet happened. Many churches, including mine, mark the end of Holy Saturday with an Easter Vigil: a late-night service that begins in complete darkness before moving toward the first proclamation of Easter. The music in this section asks you to inhabit the hours before that moment. To sit in the not-yet. Resurrection day will come. But first, the silence.
Bach – St. Matthew Passion (Part II)
Part I ended with the arrest: torches in the garden, disciples scattering into the dark. Part II has the terrible stillness of inevitability. The mocking, the crown of thorns, the crucifixion. And then the moment Bach has been building toward the entire time, Jesus quoting Psalm 22 from the cross: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” Bach sets it with no drama or orchestral outburst. Just the words. Then the crowd misunderstands. The story presses forward. And then he gives up his spirit. The orchestra stops. The chorus asks, in hushed broken phrases: “Truly, this was the Son of God.” Bach doesn’t thunder it. He almost whispers it.
The closing chorus, Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder (“We sit down in tears”), is one of the quietest, most devastating endings in the choral literature. It is not a resolution. It is a community sitting down beside a tomb, together, in the dark. Bach ends exactly where Holy Saturday ends. There is no resurrection here. That is entirely by design.
James MacMillan – Seven Last Words from the Cross
This 1993 work, commissioned for the BBC by James MacMillan, a Scottish composer and a committed Catholic, sets the seven final sayings of Christ from the cross for choir and strings. Each movement takes one utterance and stretches it into a meditation:
Father, forgive them.
Today you will be with me in paradise.
Behold your mother.
My God, why have you forsaken me.
I thirst.
It is finished.
Father, into your hands.
Where Bach moves through the full Passion narrative, MacMillan stops the clock. Each of these seven words becomes a room you sit in for a while.
The music is modern and at times intense. Some movements are searingly dissonant, others almost unbearably tender. The movement on “I thirst” is stripped to almost nothing: sparse strings, a single line of text, something that sounds like exhaustion. The final movement, “Father, into your hands,” arrives with the peace of a thing finally released.
And here’s a bonus: This modern song isn’t in the playlist, of course, but I couldn’t help thinking of Andrew Peterson’s Last Words, which is a modern quodlibet composition of it’s namesake. It’s worth a listen if you’re not already familiar with it.
Arvo Pärt – Berliner Messe (Agnus Dei)
You’ve encountered Pärt several times on this journey, and by now you know what to expect: stillness, space, music that does not hurry. The Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us”) is one of the oldest texts in the Christian liturgy. Pärt sets it in his tintinnabuli style: voices moving in slow interlocking lines, quiet, unhurried, almost suspended.
On Good Friday, the petition of the Agnus Dei is three words: miserere nobis (Have mercy on us). That is all. Pärt gives those three words more space than most composers give an entire movement. Let this be the hinge between Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
Gabriel Fauré – Requiem (In Paradisum)
Fauré’s Requiem is unlike almost every other in the repertoire. Where Verdi’s is terrifying and Mozart’s has a sense of urgency, Fauré’s is gentle. He saw death not as something to be feared but as a deliverance, and that tenderness is in every measure. The In Paradisum is the final movement: May the angels lead you into paradise. May the martyrs receive you. May they guide you into the holy city, Jerusalem. A soprano floats above a quiet choir. The harmonies are luminous. We’re still in the Easter Vigil, but in this piece we can feel something shifting.
Easter Morning
Theme: Light Breaking In.
Resurrection does not announce itself with a press release. In Matthew’s account, it happens before anyone is watching. By the time the women arrive at the tomb, it is already empty. The angel’s words are almost matter-of-fact: He is not here. He has risen, just as he said. Duh.
Easter morning, musically, shouldn’t like a performance or a finale, but more like stepping outside just before sunrise and realizing the darkness has already begun to lift.
Handel – Messiah (“Worthy Is the Lamb” & “Amen”)
Most people, when they think of Handel’s Messiah, think of the “Hallelujah” chorus. That’s not what we’re listening to here. “Worthy Is the Lamb” and the closing “Amen” come at the very end of the oratorio. They are the culmination, the thing the whole work has been building toward. The “Hallelujah” is the announcement, this is the response.
“Worthy Is the Lamb” begins with a stately, almost formal declaration, then opens into something warmer and more personal. The “Amen” that follows is one of the great sustained endings in choral music. Let it be the first light.
Bach – Cantata 147 (Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring)
You know this piece, even if you don’t know you know it. The melody has been used at weddings, graduations, and Sunday morning services for centuries. What is easy to miss is how perfectly it does what it does: it moves without urgency, it never strains, it simply continues.
Bach wrote it in 1723 as part of a larger cantata, but the final chorale is the piece the world kept. On Easter morning it belongs not as a centerpiece but as a moment of simple, settled joy. The stone is rolled away and the tomb is empty.
Mozart – Requiem (Sanctus)
It might seem strange to include a movement from a Requiem on Easter morning. But the Sanctus (“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory”) is not a mourning text. It is a vision of heaven as it already is, as it has always been, breaking briefly into view.
Mozart’s Sanctus is brief, less than two minutes, full chorus, full orchestra, the word Sanctus thrown upward like light off water. It doesn’t linger. It arrives, declares, and releases. On a morning when the whole Christian narrative pivots on a single impossible fact, two minutes of that kind of brilliance is exactly right.
Morten Lauridsen – O Magnum Mysterium
Morten Lauridsen is an American composer, and this piece, written in 1994, has become one of the most performed choral works of the last thirty years. The text is ancient, a Christmas antiphon about the mystery of the incarnation: O great mystery, that animals should witness the newborn Lord lying in a manger. But the posture of the piece – quiet wonder before something impossible and holy – is the right posture for Easter too.
The music is slow, luminous, and unhurried. The harmonies are rich without being heavy. There is no climax, no dramatic arrival, just a long, sustained leaning into awe. It is the perfect final piece for this pilgrimage. You have traveled from ashes to an empty tomb. This is what it feels like to stand there, at the edge of dawn, and simply wonder.
Pax,
Ed
ps. for those interested in more contemporary music, I’m also building another playlist on Spotify.