• Sally Beamish
  • The Judas Passion (2017)

  • Peters Edition Limited (World)

Comissioned by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale. First performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Nicholas McGegan, at Saffron Hall, UK, 24 September 2017.

  • S,T,B + CtCtCtCtTTTTBBB; 2.0.0.0/2.2.0.0/perc/hpd(chamberorg)/archlute/str(3.3.2.2.1)
  • CtCtCtCtTTTTBBB(Alt.Alt.Alt.Alt.1.1.1.1.1.1.1)
  • Soprano, Tenor, Bass
  • 1 hr 20 min
  • David Harsent
  • English

Programme Note

Does Judas choose, or is he chosen, to betray Christ? David Harsentʼs powerful, lyrical and evocative libretto raises many questions. The key issue, though, is that Judas does not ‘betray’ Christ, but ‘delivers’ him to the Sanhedrin.

Conductor Nicholas McGegan suggested to me about 8 years ago that I might write a Passion using Baroque instruments. The idea of a ‘Judas Passion’ arose later. Whether it was a response to the rising acts of terrorism, or to a Quaker premise that there is ‘that of God’ in everyone, I wanted to look at certain questions. What is unforgiveable? What motivates us to behave as we do, and to what extent do we all follow the callings of our own heart – or the callings of whatever voice we choose to name. Godʼs voice, or the Devilʼs? Did Judas believe himself to be Godʼs instrument in the fulfilment of the prophecies? Did he believe that he was enabling Jesus to demonstrate the ultimate proof that he was indeed the Son of God? Or was Judas truly, and unredeemably, evil?

The music takes as a starting point fragments of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, which I have worked into my own language with the use of ‘magic squares’ – thereby building long lines with corresponding harmonies out of small fragments of the Bach.

The result is a transparent language through which there can be fleeting glimpses of Bach. I concentrated on texture and atmosphere – the extraordinary colours afforded by a Baroque orchestra: the fragile, glassy sound of the strings, and the lyrical beauty of the flutes; the open, sometimes raw, natural horns and trumpets suggesting ancient ritualistic brass and animal horns; and the delicate tracery of harpsichord and lute. From time to time, the soundworld is drawn together by the sustained tones of chamber organ.

The Last Supper is portrayed by a Chaconne (a set of variations built on a repeated chord sequence) and reflects the ritual of communion. I have used other baroque forms such as fugue and canon, and also the idea of recitative, aria and chorale, as in Bach's Passions. In addition there are elements of Chassidic chanting, and imagined music from the temples of Jesus’ time.

The Judas Passion followed naturally from a work I wrote in 1995, which tells the story of Peterʼs Denial of Christ in the form of a viola concerto. I have drawn from the concerto, and developed Peterʼs theme – a descending, plaintive 6-note motif – into a main theme of this work, which reappears at certain points to reflect my own comparison between Peterʼs (and everymanʼs) fallibilty, and the ultimate sin that is perceived as that of Judas.

Percussion plays a key role in the conception of the piece. I have commissioned a ‘Judas Chime’ from metal sculptor John Creed. This will consist of 30 ‘pieces of silver’, hung as a chime, and will be a visual as well as an aural focus. It will be cast onto the ground by Judas, at the culmination of his anguish. We will also be using hammer and nails on a wooden soundboard, and small scrapers to be played by members of the orchestra, supplementing the single percussionist.

The 11-strong male chorus depicts, at times, the disciples, but also functions as ‘narrator’ , as the Sanhedrin, and as the crowd. Within this, there are step-out roles for Peter, Caiaphas and the two thieves. In Bach's Passions there is no specific female role, but the arias for female voice reflect the 'pieta' – the woman's role as grieving mother. In Harsentʼs libretto, the woman's role is Mary Magdalene, the prostitute who became a disciple, with all the complexity that she brings to the Gospel. Her role becomes more intense as the piece progresses. She begins as commentator, and her grief and passion build to her ultimate question: If he can't be saved, who can be saved? If he can't be forgiven, who can be forgiven? This follows Judasʼ suicide, and is addressed in anger to Christ at the height of his own suffering.

Judas has repented. He deeply regrets his actions, and their horrific outcome. He gives back the money; he hangs himself. And yet in Christian doctrine he can never be forgiven; whereas Peter, who betrayed Christ in cowardice, who turned his back on him in his hour of need, became the 'rock' on which the Church was founded.

Vocally, I have contrasted the tenor (Judas) and baritone (Jesus) by writing them often in a similar range, so that their very different colours will be highlighted. The top of both Roderick Williamsʼ and Brenden Gunnellʼs voices are remarkable and distinctive, and I have highlighted this in both roles. Julia Doyleʼs voice is warm and lyrical, and her part is inspired by hearing her sing Baroque and classical roles.

The idea of semi-staging originated from David’s suggestion that the ‘Judas kiss’ – the moment Judas indentifies Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane – should be acted out. From here, further dramatic possibilities emerged, and a simple movement plan will be designed by director Peter Thomson.

This commission is one of the most exciting projects I have embarked upon, and represents a continuation of my already fruitful relationship with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, as well as a chance to work with Philharmonia Baroque and Nicholas McGegan. I am surrounded by support and advice from brilliant, expert musicians, with whom I have met to explore the special possibilities of these fascinating and distinctive instruments and voices.

Media

Scores

Reviews

One of many puzzles that leap from the pages of the Bible is the curious position of Judas Iscariot in the wider scheme of things. The synoptic gospels do not agree on his role or the story of his apparent ‘betrayal’ of Jesus: actually, a literal ‘handing-over’ or ‘delivery’ of Jesus if the word paradidomi is more correctly translated. Two of the gospels suggest that the ‘devil’ entered him, something that Jesus had already proved adept at dealing with by a bit of casting out. Why didn’t he do so on this occasion? And if, as seems likely, Jesus foresaw, and may have actively encouraged Judas’s paradidomi, then it was not an act of free will and should not be punishable, let alone seen as the ultimate betrayal for which the ‘loving and forgiving God’ has left the hapless Judas to be almost alone among the irrevocably damned, notwithstanding his clear remorse. And if preordained, why the personal condemnation of the man who fulfils the prophecy – “It would be better for that man if he had never been born”? It was one of many New Testament events that were, apparently, preordained in the Old Testament, the juggling of which has caused many problems of Christian interpretation.

An alternative view comes from Gnostic texts which note that Judas’s role was essential for humanity’s salvation, seeing him as the “best of the apostles”. One key section of the Gnostic Gospel of Judus is used by librettist David Harsent in his text for The Judas Passion. Jesus asks the disciples to hold his gaze, but only Judas is able to do so. Jesus tells him: “You are the best of them. You will free me of the man who clothes me.” One of the mainstays of the libretto is the thought that, if Judas’s remorse is unacceptable to a ‘forgiving’ God, then there is an “incoherence in the economy of salvation”. And if he hadn’t done what Jesus seems to have encouraged him to do, where does that leave the crucifixion, the resurrection, and, indeed, the whole basis of Christian belief?

This bleak tale was given an alternative, but not unrecognisable, reading by Harsent in his libretto for Sally Beamish’s The Judas Passion, given its London premiere in St John’s, Smith Square at the start of the new Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment season (and the start of a six-year OAE project exploring ideas of the Enlightenment). Harsent also reinforced the clearly antisemitic Biblical depiction of Judas as the money-grabbing Jew. The piece opens with a carefully pronounced and repetitive cry of Ju-das from the chorus, adding the direction from the combined figure of God/Devil (sung by two unison voices to depict the implied dual character) that “you were chosen for this”, to which Judas responds ” I do it because I must”. One oddity of the libretto is the Judas also sings the role of Pilate, for no apparent (at least to me) reason.

A key role in the piece is Mary Magdalene – sung brilliantly by Mary Bevan. Indeed, the piece could easily have been called the Mary Passion. In her soaring and complex vocal lines, she acts a narrator, commentator, and at times a character involved in the action, as in the Peter denial scene. This raises another oddity of the whole story – why does Peter, who denied Christ three times (here to the accompaniment of blasts from the horns and trumpets in Sally Beamish’s score) end up being hailed as the very foundation of the Christian church. whereas Judas, who is preordained to do the complete opposite of denying Christ, is forever condemned. Questions, questions. Mary Magdalene has the same thought. At the end, she remains alone on stage asking the obvious question, ‘If he can’t be saved, who can be saved? If he can’t be forgiven, who can be forgiven?’. Good question.

Sally Beamish clearly relished the instrumental colours of the period instruments of the OAE, to which was added modern percussion, including a purpose-made Judas Chime, intended to depict Judas’s 30 pieces of silver, rather tamely crashing to the ground at the key moment. The musical language drew on Baroque influences, notably in the technical forms of chaccone, fugue, recitative etc, but also including the more esoteric sounds of African drums and chant. I wasn’t clear when the orchestral score actually started – a rather anarchic tuning up turned imperceptively into the first, discordant, sounds of the piece.

Conductor Nicholas McGegan kept things together admirably, aided by the magnificent playing by the OAE, notably Luise Buchberger, cello, Lisa Beznosiuk, flute, and Elizabeth Kenny, archlute. Alongside Mary Bevan was American tenor Brenden Gunnell as the tortured Judas and baritone Roderick Williams as a sympathetic Jesus. The eleven singers of the choir doubled other roles, including Peter, the combined figure of God and the Devil, Ciaphas, and the two thieves.

Andrew Benson-Wilson, Early Music Reviews
27th September 2017

It’s over a decade since Sally Beamish had the idea of composing a passion. What she has now produced, with a libretto by David Harsent – as a joint commission between the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and its US counterpart, the Philharmonia Baroque of San Francisco – is in many respects a version of the traditional passion story, but with one significant difference. For this is The Judas Passion, the story of Christ’s crucifixion as seen from the perspective of the man who betrayed him.

Harsent’s take on the passion story, interweaving details from the apocryphal gospels as well as the biblical ones, examines the role of Judas and explores whether his betrayal of Christ was a necessary part of the plan. Without it there would have been no crucifixion, no sacrifice to redeem mankind. Just as in his librettos for Harrison Birtwistle’s operas Gawain and The Minotaur, Harsent has retold an ancient story, finding in it new perspectives and ambiguities. In his Judas Passion, God and the devil are two sides of the same coin, always singing in rhythmic unison, just as the fates of Jesus and Judas are twinned and inextricable.

Judas is given a couple of passages of self-justification and self-loathing, but Jesus remains elusive in this retelling. And, though there is no hint of pastiche, the example of Bach’s passions permeate Beamish’s score, not just in her use of a period-instrument orchestra – only the percussion, including a specially invented “Judas chime” to signify the 30 pieces of silver, is a deliberate anachronism – but also in the use of baroque musical forms (aria, fugue, chorale, chaconne) within the transparent textures.

It’s all perhaps closer to opera than to oratorio, and this premiere, with the OAE’s finely detailed playing shaped by Nicholas McGegan, was economically and unfussily staged by Peter Thomson. The three soloists – tenor Brendan Gunnell as Judas, baritone James Newby as Christ, and soprano Mary Bevan as Mary Magdalene, who is more narrator than protagonist – and the all-male chorus of 11, who also take all the subsidiary roles, created a timeless and in many ways non-specific drama.

If the vocal writing occasionally recalls Britten’s church parables or John Adams’s opera-oratorios, the best of Beamish’s music is instrumental – minatory brass interjections, delicate tracery from the lute and harpsichord, intimate intertwinings from the pair of flutes. But those moments, like the most haunting of Harsent’s lines, are just a bit too unspecific. They keep their distance from the subject, intellectually and emotionally.

Andrew Clements, The Guardian
25th September 2017

The Passion story is told for the first time from the perspective of Judas Iscariot in a new work for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: The Judas Passion.

Sally Beamish, who is a member of Glasgow Meeting, has composed the music and she explains that her Quaker background played an important part in her thinking when she approached the commission.

The idea that ‘to understand all is to forgive all’ and the Quaker phrase ‘there is that of God in everyone’ were, she says, central: ‘I wanted to look at certain questions. What is unforgiveable? Who can be forgiven and who not? What motivates us to behave as we do, and to what extent do we all follow the callings of our own heart – or the callings of whatever voice we choose to name?’

‘Judas’, she says, ‘has been portrayed throughout history as a “traitor” and his story prompted the question of forgiveness for me. My father was a Quaker and he instilled in me Quaker ideas. Judas did what he did for a reason. We will never know. In the story we are told in the Bible he felt called – but was he called by God or the devil? Was it money? But he gave the thirty pieces of silver back. He suffered remorse. He killed himself. So, why has he not been forgiven? He has become Judas the Jew and the scapegoat.’

The Judas Passion draws on fragments of music from Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion, which Sally Beamish has developed in her own language, and the commission gave her an opportunity to incorporate new sounds into the baroque instruments of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. It prompted, for example, her collaboration with artist John Creed, a fellow Quaker from Glasgow Meeting.

She explains: ‘In terms of percussion I had this idea of making a “Judas Chime” that would make a lot of noise and reflect the thirty pieces of silver. I worked with John, who is a metal sculptor, in his workshop creating different kinds of sounds. He made a prototype that was constructed in London. I was creative with percussion and there are also drums from North Africa. The challenge, for me as a composer, was to find a “sound world” for the piece.

‘I concentrate on texture and atmosphere. The orchestra play on baroque instruments and I have worked with their distinctive musical colours: the fragile, glassy sound of strings, the lyrical beauty of the flutes, the open, raw natural horns and trumpets and delicate tracery of harpsichord and lute.’

Sally Beamish says that composing The Judas Passion was a multi-faceted process but returns from talking about music to the central theme of forgiveness: ‘The work asks questions. Surely, if a central theme of Christianity is forgiveness, then why has Judas not been forgiven? In one section a counter-tenor and a baritone sing in unison. There is not one voice because one represents God and the other the devil. I thought it would be good to put two voices together.’

‘The commission has been very interesting for me, as a composer, because I had the opportunity to explore a new sound world. It has been a new departure. I hope people will come away with new sounds in their heads. I hope I have created a very distinctive sound world.

‘Above all, though, I hope those questions concerning forgiveness will be in the minds of the audience.’

Further information: A semi-staged production of The Judas Passion will be premiered at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden on Sunday 24 September and in London at St John’s Smith Square on Monday 25 September.

Ian Kirk-Smith, theFriend
15th September 2017

Librettist David Harsent notes that there is no doubt that Judas’s betrayal led to Christ’s death, but begs us to ask, what did Judas believe was his ‘purpose’? After all, if he had not ‘fulfilled’ this role, chosen or predetermined, mankind would not have been saved. David Harsent professes that his own aim was to ‘write Judas out of hell’, ‘to set him before an audience and bring him to a new judgment’.

Beamish and Harsent purport to present the Passion story from the
perspective of Judas Iscariot, but this is not really what they do. Or
rather, at times do they seem to offer Judas’s understanding of his role, but this is set against a single question which is reiterated and rephrased throughout – ‘Does Judas choose, or is he chosen to betray Christ?’ Moreover, ‘Do we following the callings of our own heart – or the callings of whatever voice we choose to name, God’s voice, or the Devil’s’? In accordance with this ambiguity, the Devil and God sing in rhythmic unison: countertenor Christopher Field and bass William Gaunt were designated both roles. As Mary Magdalene relates, ‘And the Devil went into Judas, the Devil or God’.

Indeed, ambiguity prevails. There is little to distinguish between any of the protagonists, other than Christ, Judas and Mary Magdalene, and in fact towards the close the former two men are intimated to be kindred. The entire cast are dressed in black and individuals such as Peter (bass Dingle Yandell) and the two Thieves (tenor Hugo Hymas and bass Jonathan Brown) emerge from and are reintegrated into the Chorus (which is at times split in two). I guess the idea is that the players in the drama could be anyone, historic or present, involved by chance in momentous events, powerless to change the course of mankind’s predetermined narrative. 

There are no philosophical musings which might essay an answer at the posed questions; as I’ve suggested above, at times the libretto seems to suggest that there is no question to answer. In the opening scene, Judas is a reluctant participant when asked to name his price for betraying Jesus: ‘I do it because I must […] I do it because it fell to me. His hand on mine’; words that are repeated time and again, through to the final scene. And, unlike the other disciples who probe, ‘Is it me?’, he stays silent at the Last Supper. God and the Devil declare in rhythmic unison, ‘He is chosen … the man is already chosen’. In his programme article, Harsent refers to an
extant Gospel of Judas, dated at 3 or 4 CE, ‘a Gnostic text found in Middle Egypt around 1978’ which was published in 2006 and from which he takes a single line: when Jesus calls the disciples to him none save Jesus can hold his gaze, ‘whereupon Jesus tells Judas: “You are the best of them, for you will free me of the man who clothes me.”’ From this, Harsent suggest we may infer that ‘Judas was born to the task’.

Perhaps the potential philosophical complexities cannot be satisfactorily pursued within a simple dramatic form? Beamish’s Passion is not really an opera, despite the involvement of a ‘stage director’, Peter Thomson, or an oratorio; nor is it a ‘Passion’ in the mould of Bach, despite the baroque instrumentation (strings, lute, flutes plus a very twentieth-century percussion collection), the use of polyphonic forms (canons, fugues) and recitative- and aria-like episodes, and the incorporation of fragments of the St Matthew Passion.

I was at first put in mind of Britten’s Church Parables: indebted to
Japanese noh plays, they present drama and stage movement with a similar slow-motion solemnity to that adopted by Thomson. Progressively, though, Britten’s Rape of Lucretia seemed a closer model: it also has a framing Male and Female Chorus – the latter role here is represented by Mary Magdalene – who sometimes intervene in the action and present abstract ethical and philosophical sentiments. So, Harsent’s opening male Chorus denounce Judas, ‘Better that man had not been born who sold his soul, who gave himself up to Satan, who bartered the Son of Man, who made a deal with darkness’, while Britten’s Male and Female Chorus tell us that ‘We’ll view these human passions and these years/ Through eyes which once have wept with Christ’s own tears.’

The problem with Harsant’s libretto is that it becomes predictable, and often seems to follow its biblical model. More imaginative engagement with the Passion stories can be found in John Adams’ and Peter Sellars’ 
The Gospel According to Mary
which presents the story of the Passion through the eyes of those whose tales are usually unheard: Mary Magadalen, her sister Martha and their brother Lazarus. And, there are several recent literary explorations, notably Colm TÛibÌn’s The Testament of Mary.

Moreover, though it is evocative at times, I found Beamish’s score pretty predictable too. The writing for the chorus is largely declamatory, and incorporates some Chassidic chanting, but there is little variety of timbre or manner. There is effective writing for the strings – alternating glacial ethereality with pungent chordal and pizzicato stabs – and the flutes and lute offer delicacy and grace. But, the strident natural horns and trumpets, as the cock crows, were all too foreseeable. Similarly, the percussive effects, such as real hammers, whips and nails alongside slapsticks to provide an aural complement for the text’s uncomfortable imagery – ‘on his head a cap of thorns driven hard into the skin’; ‘with ropes and winches and hammer and nails and flesh, They nailed him, then hauled him up’ – and the centre-piece ‘Judas Chime’ constructed from 30 ‘pieces of silver’ are pictorial but unsubtle.

The inclusion of the figure of Mary Magdalene – sung with radiance and fierce focus by Mary Bevan – is one of the strengths of the libretto and score. Magdalene is the only figure on stage at the close, and her final question, ‘If he can’t be saved, who can be saved? If he can’t be forgiven, who can be forgiven?’, is provocative and penetrating. Not only does this inclusion of a female role provide timbral and registral contrast, but the role of Mary Magdalene also offers a more objective, calmer perspective on the events that we witness unfold. She comments in the past tense, as the participants enact their roles in the present (though this effective distinction is blurred at times, as when Mary interacts with Peter in the denial scene).

Mary’s vocal line also incorporates expressive melisma in contradistinction to the prevailing syllabic motion of the other parts, most effectively in ‘Who Do You Say I Am?’, when she reminds us that though the Chorus tell of Jesus’s reputation as a ‘prophet’ and ‘man of miracles’, there were those who called him blasphemer, fool, lawbreaker. When the Chorus accuse Christ of ‘Blasphemy!’ and throw their shrill demands, ‘Crucify him!’, Mary reminds us of the miracles performed.

Brendan Gunnell’s Judas pins us with a penetrating upper register that is as captivating as his stern stare. There is a moving moment when the angularity of the melodic intervals – ‘My face on these coins, my name on them. For all time: my face, my name’ – gives way to the stillness of repeated pitch, ‘his blood’. I was confused, though, as to why Judas, in Harsent’s words, ‘in effect – stands in for Pilate’ in the scene when Christ is brought before the Roman prefect of Judaea: Judas is, as the syllabic chanting of his name in the opening scene reinforces, a Jew; Pilate is not. And, why does Judas/Pilate sometimes speak his own words, while at other times they are reported by Mary, as if retrospectively?

Roderick Williams struck the right balance between serenity and suffering, as Jesus. It must have been quite an emotional shift taking on this role in between his embodiment of Mozart’s bird-catcher at the Royal Opera House, though both dramas involve much magic and miracle. Williams’ delivery suggested both gravitas and humanity. In the second scene, ‘The Last Supper’, he stood at the rear, forcing the Chorus to turn towards him and subtly implicating us as members of his audience; in ‘The Agony in the Garden’ he stood at the front, fixing us with an intent gaze. There are some moments of affecting dramatic intensity. Towards the close,
Jesus and Judas stand at the rear of the stage, backs turned (to indicate their dying and death), and sing together, ‘My God, why are you lost to me?’. But, the incisiveness of the moment is lost as Judas slips back into what might be seen as self-justifying repetition (though, as I’ve suggested, the ethical questions are not truly explored): ‘What I did I was chosen to do. What I have I was asked to give. What I lost I was told to lose. My only purpose, his death and mine.’ I felt that there was a dissipation of intellectual intensity towards the close, as the text slipped towards sentimental abstractions. When Mary and the Chorus sing, ‘His death … our salvation … this and only this.’, I felt we were back in Lucretia territory – specifically Ronald Duncan’s dreadfully woolly epilogue: ‘Is it all? Is all this suffering and pain,/ Is it in vain? … Is this all loss? Are we lost? … Is it all? Is this it all?’ The noble Classical columns of St John’s Smith Square should have provided the perfect setting for The Judas Passion (the work had been premiered the previous evening in Saffron Walden), and it was pleasing to see the church nave full for this performance of a challenging new work. However, SJSS’s sightlines are poor and seated to the rear I struggled to
sustain my view of and engagement with Thomson’s stage action. Fortunately, the cast’s diction was uniformly good for it was not possible to read the libretto, usefully provided, in the dimmed lighting, and the two surtitle screens were obscured by the imposing pillars. At the close, the Devil and God pronounce, ‘Chosen for this: born to this: his only purpose …’ A troubling statement, and one which Beamish and Harsent reiterate but do not really interrogate.

Claire Seymour, Opera Today
September 2017