Speaker 1: Where to?

Speaker 2: Carnegie Hall, please.

Speaker 3: Please, here are your tickets. Enjoy the show.

Speaker 4: Your tickets, please? Follow me.

Jeff Spurgeon: Remember those days running from a taxi to catch your favorite orchestra or ensemble, finding your seat in a beautiful concert hall? Well, those days will come again hopefully soon. Until that time, we have some previously recorded concerts to share with you from Carnegie Hall live. As concert halls across the globe, including Carnegie, have been shuttered by the pandemic, we want to keep the spirit of concert performance alive by presenting highlights from the past decade of broadcasts from Carnegie Hall live.

For these past 10 years, WQXR has partnered with Carnegie Hall to bring you unforgettable concerts from the world's best orchestras, chamber ensembles, and soloists. I'm Jeff Spurgeon. This program features the Canadian ensemble, Les Violons du Roy, The King's Violins, and the choir, La Chapelle de Québec. For the next two hours, we'll hear a rare performance of Bach's St John Passion from March of 2012. Now for some people, all of Bach's music is sacred, but we can safely say that Bach wrote the music that we're about to hear for church, specifically for the Good Friday service in Leipzig, Germany in 1724. The performers who will bring this story to life are from Quebec City, Canada, Maestro Bernard Labadie founded his orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, there in 1984. A year later, he created the choir, La Chapelle de Québec.

As we mentioned, Labadie and his orchestra and choir performed this work in 2012. Labadie is now principal conductor for orchestra of St. Luke's in New York City, and this Canadian ensemble is currently led by Jonathan Cohen. For this performance, English tenor, Ian Bostridge, is singing the part of the evangelist. We'll also hear Welsh bass-baritone, Neal Davies, Canadian soprano, Karina Gauvin, French tenor, Damien Guillon, American tenor, Nicholas Phan, and German bass-baritone, Hanno Müller-Brachmann as soloists. What is this piece, the St. John Passion of Bach? Before the concert began, we put that question to Bernard Labadie.

Bernard Labadie: The St. John Passion is probably the boldest experience in terms of dramatic expression in all of Bach's output. I think it's a statement of who he was as musician, what he wanted to be, what kind of church music he wanted to do sometimes, and it must have been a major shocker for his audience because the boldness, especially with the harmonic writing in the choral music, for instance, is at a level that was unprecedented.

Jeff Spurgeon: Bernard Labadie, founder and conductor of Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec. We're about to go to church here in Carnegie Hall. On stage for the performance, the orchestra, Les Violons du Roy and the chorus, La Chapelle de Québec, with conductor Bernard Labadie for a performance originally recorded in 2012, Bach's St. John Passion from Carnegie Hall Live.

[MUSIC - Johann Sebastian Bach: St. John Passion]

[applause]

Jeff Spurgeon: Part One of the St. John Passion of J.S. Bach coming to you from Carnegie Hall live. Bernard Labadie conducting the group he founded in 1984, Les Violons du Roy, and the choral ensemble, La Chapelle de Québec. The group Les Violons du Roy is made up of 15 instrumentalists in the center of the stage, surrounded on three sides by members of the chorus, La Chapelle de Québec. I'm Jeff Spurgeon.

For this season of Carnegie Hall live, we're bringing you highlights from past concerts from our Carnegie series. People say that Bach never wrote an opera, but I don't think it's true. I think that if you look at these passions with any sense at all of dispassion, it's quite clear he was thinking dramatically and bringing drama to life. In this work, the role of the evangelist sung by Ian Bostridge is not just an objective observer. He has real emotion in the storytelling, and he brings a point of view to the character.

Bach's music is also full of drama, and boldness. We'll hear more of that in the second half of this broadcast of Bach's St. John Passion. This is Carnegie Hall live. We're listening to a concert of the St. John Passion of J.S. Bach with the orchestra Les Violons du Roy, conducted by Bernard Labadie, recognized around the world for his expertise in music of the 16 and 1700s. We spoke with Maestro Labadie about a dramatic scene in the second half coming up in the St. John Passion, the moment when Jesus is on the cross, and His mother finds Him.

Bernard Labadie: The music becomes incredibly motherly. The writing as I would say maternal turn in terms of harmony, the way the line is built and Bach uses what is probably the most intimate way of expressing this maternal love, and it's by just putting chorale there, which is the collective expression of faith. Somehow Mary symbolizes the whole church there, all of Christians gathered around the cross. That's why he needs a collective statement of faith rather than an individual expression from soloist.

Jeff Spurgeon: Conductor Bernard Labadie talking about just one of the many dramatic moments on the way in the second half of the St. John Passion by Bach. Joining the Canadian orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, and the choir, La Chapelle de Québec, are soloists Ian Bostridge, the tenor singing the role of the evangelist, the Welsh bass-baritone, Neil Davis, the Canadian soprano, Karina Gauvin, French tenor, Damien Guillon, American tenor, Nicholas Phan, and German bass-baritone, Hanno Müller-Brachmann. Bernard Labadie is now on stage to conduct the second half of the St. John Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach from Carnegie Hall live. [applause]

[MUSIC - Johann Sebastian Bach: St. John Passion]

[applause]

Jeff Spurgeon: A warm applause at Carnegie Hall for a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion. The ensemble the Canada-based Les Violons du Roy and the choir La Chapelle de Quebec led by their founder conductor Bernard Labadie. The English tenor Ian Bostridge sang the part of the evangelist. Other soloists who are bass-baritone Neil Davis, soprano Karina Gauvin, tenors Damien Guillone and Nicholas Phan, and bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann.

The telling of the story of the Passion of Jesus from the Gospel of John with a couple of passages from Matthew tossed in for some interesting colorful writing from J. S. Bach. Great performances by all the soloists and members of Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec conducted by Bernard Labadie. I'm Jeff Spurgeon. This is Carnegie Hall Live.

[applause]

 

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