26th February 2023
Our first concert of the year is done – and as one of the people in the audience said: First SCJ concert of the year is a gem! Well, she wasn’t the only one to give us super crits because it really was a wonderful concert. The choir raised its effort to new heights according to another person and yet another wrote: SCJ is absolutely world class. There you go! The soloists were equally good; Hendré van Zyl was steady and reliable as always and the ladies…..wow! – alto Monica Mhangwana with her lovely, smooth voice and soprano Brittany Smith whose absolutely superb voice soared effortlessly to high notes and through tricky runs.
Monica is leaving these shores to further her studies in Germany on a scholarship won through the Richard Cock Music Enterprises International Mozart Festival, so it’ll be a while before we hear her again, but you can hear Brittany again as a soloist in our next concert. Another former Richard Cock Music Enterprises International Mozart Festival scholarship winner, his is a superb tenor voice, will be one of the other soloists in that concert – our very dear Siyabonga Maqungo who is now at the prestigious Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. Add to that, among others, the well-known and much-loved bass/baritone Aubrey Lodewyk and you are guaranteed a super concert.
So – what is this fantastic concert coming up next?
Johan Sebastian Bach
St. John Passion
Good Friday 7th April 2023 @ 6 pm
Linder Auditorium, Parktown
Soloists: Brittany Smith, Sanele Bambatha, Aubrey Lodewyk, Bongani Mthombeni,
Siyabonga Maqungo
The Phoenix Orchestra
Conducted by Richard Cock
In 1723 at the age of 38 Bach succeeded to the prestigious title of Cantor at the Thomasschule. He was third choice for the job – but it was one he retained for the rest of his life. His arduous duties involved playing the organ, teaching Latin and music in the Thomasschule, writing music for the church services of both the Nicolaikirche and Thomaskirche, and directing the music and training the musicians of two further churches. All this besides, famously, fathering twenty children (six of whom, sadly, did not survive into adulthood). The music that flowed from his pen during this period includes some of the greatest spiritual music ever written: the Mass in B minor, St Matthew Passion, Christmas Oratorio, nearly 300 church cantatas – and the St John Passion.
The St John Passion (Johannes-Passion in German) is a setting of the Passion story as related in St John’s Gospel. It was first performed on Good Friday 7 April 1724 in Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche. Bach revised the work in 1725 and 1732 but it is heard most frequently today in the final version he completed in 1749.
Passion here has an archaic meaning, referring specifically to the story of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. It comes from the Latin verb ‘patior’ meaning ‘to suffer, bear, endure’. Accounts of the Passion are found in all four canonical gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Passion according to St Matthew was commonly heard as the Gospel for Palm Sunday, while St John’s version was heard on Good Friday. Until the Reformation, the text had been sung in Latin to plainchant or in a capella settings using plainsong, homophony and polyphony. Over the next 150 years or so, this evolved into the concept of the oratorio Passion, a work which merged chorales, non-Biblical and devotional texts with gospel passages – and all sung in German. It has been said that of all Bach’s larger works, the compositional history of the St John Passion is by far the most complex. Whereas the St Matthew Passion is an almost continuous succession of narrative giving the work a more contemplative and devout character, the St John Passion has a rag-bag of a text, drawing on Chapters 18 and19 of St John’s Gospel (in the translation of Martin Luther), two short interpolations from St Matthew’s Gospel, extracts from Psalm 8, chorale verses, and Passion poetry from various authors.
This is your opportunity to experience one of the greatest works of the Baroque period
Book now to avoid disappointment – use this link
On behalf of the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg
Kate Pape