Good Friday 2019

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This Good Friday, I’ll be going to the Pantasaph Stations of the Cross in North Wales (outdoors, winding its way up a steep hillside). Back home, I’ll be listening to my Good Friday “standards”, in other words, Bach’s “St. John’s Passion” and Arvo Pärt’s “Passio”. This morning, I have begun with another old favourite: Eddie Kirkland’s cover of John Mark McMillan’s “How He Loves”, set to the drawings of Si Smith that imagine, in cartoon form, Jesus’ 40 days in the desert, but with symbolic references to the Passion story along the way.

First up, here’s the Bach:

Bach’s Passion itself starts at 5min50secs.


"In addition to the ensemble performing on period instruments, further elements of both authenticity and intimacy were added by inserting other music used in the Leipzig Good Friday service that Bach himself would have heard and by inviting the audience to sing the responsory portions of the chorales that bookend the Passion. Recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall on August 20th 2017 as Prom 49."

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