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World Première Recording GOOD FRIDAY JOHN CALDWELL Good Friday is an opera-oratorio based on the crucifixion narrative as told in the Gospel according to St. John. It combines Latin and English liturgical texts and medieval poetry with a dramatic enaction of the Passion story. The Choir of Lincoln College, Oxford Nicholas Chalmers - Director Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia Oliver Sändig - Leader with players from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Benjamin Nicholas - Conductor Nicholas Chalmers -  Sub-conductor

Contents:

DDD Total Time = 75:54

Good Friday was originally composed for the chapels of three Oxford colleges: Lincoln, Jesus, and Exeter. The first performances, by members of the three colleges and others, took place in February 1998, with the first two scenes played in Lincoln and the other two in Jesus and Exeter. The scenes were connected by outdoor processional music for voices and transportable instruments. The structure of the work is the direct result of these circumstances, building up from smallish forces in the first of the three chapels to much larger resources in the final scene; the processional music, too, was designed to accommodate as much repetition as necessary. The work was also given ‘in the round’ at the Catholic Chaplaincy, Oxford, in March 1999, with only minor adjustments, and it is in this form that it has been recorded.

The work is essentially dramatic in conception, but it incorporates narrative and meditative elements to a degree that would be unusual in opera: hence the designation opera-oratorio. These narrative and meditative elements are drawn from the medieval and modern Catholic liturgy of Good Friday. The narrative is from the gospel of St John and is sung in Latin by three singers in a quasi-liturgical fashion. The meditative material, though drawn from the same liturgy, is somewhat rearranged in order to make its relevance to the narrative clearer. The words of the first sung procession are those of a medieval English carol, while those of the second procession are a hymn by Venantius Fortunatus.

The dramatic action parallels the gospel narrative and for the most part is heard simultaneously with it. The scene at the court of Caiaphas, however, has been inserted from St Matthew’s gospel and has no ‘narrative’ parallel. The lament of the women and St John at the foot of the cross is adapted from a medieval Latin drama and is again not paralleled in the narrative. The action is sung for the most part in English, but the words of the Roman soldiers, and also those of Christ from the Cross, are left in Latin.

The liturgical basis of the work is apparent at the outset, when a Latin prayer is sung by the ‘Celebrant’, who thereupon becomes Jesus in the action. Similarly the narrative is sung by three men (liturgical deacons) who for the purposes of this work are identified as Peter (‘Christus’, singing the words assigned to Christ), John (‘Evangelista’ i.e. the narrator himself), and James (‘Synagoga’, who sings the words of the other characters). The identification of ‘Christus’ with Peter leads to some dramatic irony in the second scene; and Peter, having abandoned Jesus, is not present at the foot of the Cross to contribute the words of Christ in the narrative. Jesus therefore draws the narrative and action into one by singing his own last words in Latin.

The musical style is influenced both by the circumstances of the work’s first performances and by precedents in the history of religious music. Its fundamental basis is a plain narrative recitative, related to that of the early Baroque, accompanied at first by wind instruments and later by the organ. A harsher idiom, not for the most part atonal but making use of motives drawn from a 12-note row, alternates with this and is partly superimposed on it (especially throughout scene 3). Elsewhere, for various expressive reasons, more traditional norms of tonality prevail. The trivial light music in scene 2 symbolizes the low life of the hangers on at the palace of Annas (here equated with that of Caiaphas).

In a work with a wide range of stylistic referents it is perhaps inevitable that close reminiscences of other music should occur. These were quite subconscious, but were not expunged when recognized: they were either the inevitable consequence of a particular technique or else carried an emotional charge analogous to that of the putative original. Earlier material was consciously adopted only for the tone of the opening prayer, for the hymn ‘Vexilla regis prodeunt’ (an adaptation from the original plainsong), and for the refrain of the final section, in this case an unaltered plainsong hymn-melody.

Page revised 26.06.03