Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/66

52 it all. The Pilate must sing as he may have spoken, the choir must shriek “Crucifige,” and that in no ecclesiastical accents. But then, in its inward truth and in virtue of the story it would make present to us, that music would be truly religious music. Then I should need no “associations” with the music, for the music would be no longer an “instrument to raise the mind to devotion,” as these people conceive it, but it would be a language that spoke to me, and the meaning be expressed only by the words themselves, embodied only in them. Thus it is with Sebastian Bach’s Passion music; but even this, as they sing it here, is only a sort of compromise, neither simple narration nor great dramatic, passionate truth. The choir sings “Barabbam” in just the same devotional accents as “Et in terra pax.” Pilate is made to speak in the same tone as the evangelist. The words of Jesus are always commenced piano, to give them a sort of distinction, while the choir is strenuously shouting its ecclesiastical phrases. One really fails to see what it is all about. But pardon my comments, and I will go on at once with my description.

The evangelist is a tenor, and the style of recitation is the same as in the Lections, with special cadences for comma, query, and full stop. The evangelist recites on D, and at a full stop changes thus:—