Bach

In a phone conversation on Friday, a parishioner asked me if I was going to the "St. Matthew's Passion". I honestly did not know what that was, but quickly determined that it was musical. Ordinarily, I am a great appreciator of all things musical. She said it was a huge community event. I guess I assumed that meant all the church choirs would be participating.

Actually, it was nothing like I expected, but was a performance of Bach's entire Passion Concert. There was a part one in the afternoon which lasted over an hour and a half. (we did not go to that part). Part two in the evening lasted for two hours. There were printed programs with great detail, but the concert was two thirds through the performance before I found my place and could follow along (didn't realize the program also had part one in it). The "play book" used by many of the musicians was at least two inches thick.

I say this at the risk of sounding uncultured, un-musical, uneducated---I discovered from the experience that I do not like the music of Bach at all! I am not a fan of opera, and much of the singing, though extremely well performed, was opera-like. But the two choirs and two orchestras were most impressive. The musicians tended to be from the "professional" ranks. I think I am glad for the experience of hearing Bach's musical version of the passion narrative. But it is not an experience I would want to repeat!

Perhaps the best part was seeing a couple of 'old familiar faces'. In fact, out of all those hundreds of faces, those two faces were sitting side by side in choir two, though they did not know each other. We went to speak to them afterwards just to say hello. One had worked for Gerry back in his Engineering College days. The other had been my District Superintended when I first went into the ministry. Isn't that amazing? Now that I write about it, I realize just how amazing it is.

Bach----not to my taste. Old familiar faces---priceless!