Good Friday

It snowed last night and today.  Not exactly what I'm looking for in mid-April, but I suppose it contributes to the mood of Good Friday.  My children took advantage of the opportunity to build one last (I hope!) snowman of the winter.

We watched the live Good Friday service from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception at Catholic University in Washington, DC.  I have been there once before, with my son, when he was visiting colleges several years ago.  It was strange, but also rather solemn, to see such an enormous church empty except for about a dozen people.

Afterwards I watched a performance of Bach's St. John Passion by the Berlin Philharmonic.  Last month I took advantage of their offer of a month's free access to their archives, which is where I found it.  This was a fairly modern production staged by Peter Sellars, about whom I know nothing, which is apparently a sign of my ignorance, since a Google search immediately reveals him to be a somewhat controversial director.  The performance was choreographed, with the soloists and choir moving around the stage in ways designed to tell the story.  It didn't always work--in particular, an early aria with a Mary Magdalene character obviously in love with and at one point passionately kissing Jesus was irritating in its Jesus Christ Superstar-like sensationalism (which it is rather difficult to imagine Bach endorsing).  But for the most part, somewhat to my surprise, I actually found it quite powerful.  Peter's denial of Christ was very well done, and both Pilate and the evangelist John were excellent.  It was a good way to spend part of Good Friday.

(I was curious, so I looked for some reviews of Sellars's version of the St. John Passion.  I found a few quite positive ones, such as this from Forbes, but also an interesting negative review in The Specator, written by someone who had actually performed in it.)

Unless you also signed up for the Berlin Philharmonic's offer, I can't share it with you.  (Though if you did, you can search their digital concert hall for it easily enough.)  So instead, here is a short clip of the greatest Lenten hymn of all time, O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden ("O Sacred Head, now Wounded"), in the setting from Bach's other great oratorio, the St. Matthew Passion--about the first two minutes is all you need.