Peter in the Passion: Part I
The Denial of Saint Peter is a painting by Francisco Collantes
Stories of betrayed friendship rend the heart. For Medieval Europe, the Apostle Peter’s rejection of Christ during the Passion was harrowing and the subject of much artistic attention. Musical interpretation of this betrayal has gripped composers’ minds for centuries—most paradigmatically in Bach’s Passion arias. In the last fifty years, several composers have reframed this betrayal narrative for contemporary, globalized (and often secular) audiences, using the traditional Passion genre to reflect on what it means to be human: the universality of remorse, the heart’s desire for redemption, and hope in the love and mercy of God. These composers allow listeners—even non-religious ones—to contemplate the weight of the divine; to experience, in the words of Andreas Loewe, “something greater than themselves: the presence of God and the beauty of heaven.”
Perhaps the most popular Passion setting of the reemergent genre is Arvo Pärt’s Passio Domini Jesu Christi secundum Joannem, a Latin setting of St. John’s Passion for soloists, mixed choir, violin, oboe, cello, bassoon, and organ. Pärt completed Passio in 1982—a decade after his conversion to the Orthodox Church—following a six-year withdrawal from the world of composition, and a period of forced emigration. During his time away from composition, Pärt studied Gregorian chant and early polyphony. Passio is considered the culmination of a reductive compositional style he developed through these studies: the “metamodernist” style of tintinnabuli (Latin for “little bells”). Informed by Pärt’s own spirituality and careful consideration of text and aesthetics, Passio participates in a wider musical exploration of Peter as emblematic of fallenness—a fallenness redeemed and restored in relationship with God.
The minimalist qualities of Pärt’s tintinnabulation create an atmosphere in which every musical feature is exposed. The music of his Passio accounts for every word sung, note played, and breath sighed. He only assigns solos to the roles of Jesus and Pilate as bass and tenor, respectively. A quartet sings the part of John the Evangelist. And—perhaps surprisingly—a larger choir sings Peter’s dialogue, the same choir that voices the High Priest and other narrative roles.
For those familiar with the recitation of the Passion during the Mass, or even with Bach’s Passions, Pärt’s choice to voice Peter through a choir will seem quite unusual. Typically, a single lector or soloist declaims an individual person’s speech. But here, Peter’s rejection is microcosmic, speaking to a wider sociocultural rejection of God. One cannot understand the weight of Peter’s voice without seeing its relation to the rest of the work; similarly, one cannot understand the weight of Peter’s rejection without seeing its relation to the rest of the characters in the Passion—and indeed, to all of fallen humanity. Choral declamation, especially when conveyed by a choir singing the roles of multiple culpable characters, implies a shared responsibility for the betrayal. The listener no longer sees Peter’s treachery as one isolated event, committed by one man at one historical moment. Rather, it extends to every action rejecting Christ throughout history.
Passio is a single, through-composed movement: for seventy continuous minutes, the listener hears an uninterrupted recounting of the Passion according to St. John. Throughout the piece, Pärt carefully develops a contemplative sense of timelessness, challenging stillness only to emphasize certain heartrending moments. And though the narrative passes through time, tintinnabulation causes the listener to lose sense of chronology. The text does not repeat, but repetitive melodic and harmonic material clouds any linear sense of progression, allowing the listener to be absorbed into the music. It is from this stillness that a person might encounter God; rather than watching from a distance, the listener experiences the narrative unfolding immanently. In this sense, Pärt’s tintinnabulation participates in the wider hesychastic prayer tradition of the Orthodox Church. By crafting a truly timeless aesthetic, Pärt presents the nature of communal betrayal to an audience that may be entirely secular, calling attention to the human condition in an unexpectedly numinous space.
Passio reserves disturbances to this stillness for just a few climactic points in the narrative, including Peter’s speech. Pärt uses modulation—changing from one tonal center to another—to mark dramatic shifts when Peter speaks. The Evangelist, who sings most of the piece, is tonally grounded in the key of A-minor. To emphasize this tonal center, the Evangelist frequently repeats the note “A”, a repetition reminiscent of Gregorian chant. When the choir enters to voice the inquisitors and Peter, the music modulates to a new key: E-major. At one level, such a tonal shift continues the natural flow of the piece; but at another, this feels almost like it is not supposed to happen. Some notes in the E-major scale do not exist in A-minor, and thus feel unnatural—even disconcerting—in such a modest musical economy. Because the conversations between Peter and his inquisitors are interwoven into the Evangelist’s narration, this abrupt modulation occurs multiple times.
These dramatic choral interjections create discord in an otherwise somber, mellow setting, compelling listeners to give heed to Pärt’s message. His compositional choices might reveal commiseration with Peter, or may even be a call to action to the audience. According to Andrew Shenton, Pärt’s music “breathes life into the corpse of modernity, but it also inhabits this body.” Pärt concludes the piece with a prayer, sung by the choir: “Qui passus es pro nobis, miserere nobis. Amen.” (“You who suffered for us, have mercy on us. Amen.”). This prayer marks a very personal inclusion of Pärt’s own spirituality into an otherwise anonymous, removed Passion setting. The same choir that voiced the soldiers and servants in the garden, Peter’s treachery, and the sneering crowd, now asks for mercy. Pärt does not minimize Peter’s sin, but he also does not allow the sin to undermine confidence in the redemption purchased through Christ’s sacrifice.
Pärt's prayer recalls those who were historically present at the Passion and betrayed Christ. However, the use of the first-person plural pronoun nobis is not to be underestimated. Nobis indicates a more profound invitation on the composer’s part. Pärt conveys the need for mercy as an ongoing longing, and unites himself with Peter and all repentant sinners in this humble plea. If understood as a complement to the Bachian tradition, the participant in Pärt’s Passio connects with Peter and—as stated by fellow composer John Tavener—enters “the threshold of a true encounter with the living God.” It is in this encounter that the listener comes to know God’s love, a love “to the end” (John 13:1).
Passio is the culmination of Pärt’s tintinnabulation, a style widely praised for its wide accessibility and numinous potential. In order for this potential to be fulfilled, Pärt’s works must communicate effectively and compellingly. Without Pärt’s own conviction, the style could lapse into uninspired banality. Instead, he reframes musical conventions and traditions, allowing audiences of differing faith commitments to enter his musical world. In so doing, he leaves room for the listener to be immersed, to interpret, and to take away.
At the surface, it is perhaps our self-identification with Peter’s treachery and lament that draws the composer, performer, and listener to this story. But in Pärt’s treatment of Peter, we also see a glimmer of hope: a longing for redemption to be fulfilled through God’s mercy. Pärt’s work anticipates an encounter with God not marked by shame, but by the love of a most perfect Friend. The continued impact of Peter’s role in settings of the Passion may be found to reveal that “life, not only that of the individual but of humanity across time, is wrought from the persistent interplay of suffering with love.”
Victoria Costa is a postgraduate student in sacred music at the University of St Andrews, where she specializes in musical aesthetics in liturgical time.