In recent years, the regular musical church services have become an integral part of the services offered in our congregation. They aim to proclaim the Christian message in a completely different way, using music. The great tradition of our Protestant church music offers an extremely rich selection of suitable works.
On 13 April 2025, the extended church choir of our congregation continued the tradition of performing suitable Passion music during Lent. The St John Passion by Heinrich Schütz was performed – now for the second time. This work belongs to the tradition of the so-called responsorial Passion, according to which the action of the Passion story, as described in the Gospel of John, is divided into solo parts for the Evangelist, Jesus and Pilate and a polyphonic choir for the soldiers, priests and the crowd. The work is framed by a short opening chorus and an arrangement of the hymn verse “O hilf, Christe, Gottes Sohn” at the end. In his setting, which is limited solely to the text (chapters 18 and 19) of the Gospel of John and dispenses with instrumental accompaniment, Schütz uses sparing but forceful musical means to portray the immense drama and deeper meaning of the events. The work has not lost its impact to this day.
As the role of the Evangelist could no longer be sung due to the sudden illness of the tenor soloist, Pastor Christiane Simon read this part without further ado. The roles of Jesus and Pilate were sung with great sensitivity by Keaton Manwaring and Christiaan Bell. This unusual distribution of roles gave the performance a special charm.The extended church choir under the direction of Winfried Lüdemann interpreted the numerous choral pieces (the soldiers, the priests, the crowd) expressively with musically clean intonation and diction, thus giving the performance the necessary overarching context. Pastor Ingrid van Sittert placed the performance in the context of a church service with an introductory prayer and concluding blessing. With the opening hymn “Jesu, deine Passion will ich jetzt bedenken”, the congregation was fittingly included in the performance.
The performance was supported and met with a good response by a large number of visitors, who enjoyed a glass of wine or cup of coffee and cake. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all participants for their generous support.
Winfried Lüdemann
