Peter in the Passion: Part II

“Every half century,” says Paul Griffiths, “history rolls at us another wave of composers who will change the way music is heard and played.” At the turn of the millennium, the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (International Bach Academy of Stuttgart) commissioned four new Passion settings from four different composers (Wolfgang Rihm, Sophia Gubaidulina, Osvaldo Golijov, and Tan Dun) for the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach’s death. The project, entitled “Passion 2000,” is a significant compositional feat, one that offers genealogical insights into relationships between traditional and contemporary music. Passion 2000 brings to light the artistic potential of engagement with musical heritages, reflecting on the ways composers have interpreted the human experience throughout history. These works represent at once an inheritance and an innovation.

In my previous article, I examined Arvo Pärt’s musical treatment of Peter’s rejection of Christ in his Passio. Now, I turn to Golijov’s La Pasión Según San Marcos (“The Passion After St. Mark”) from Passion 2000. Golijov’s La Pasión is a multi-lingual, multi-media setting of St. Mark’s Passion that explores what follows Peter’s treachery: Peter’s lament. Mark, the gospel on which La Pasión is based, is a fast-paced account of Christ’s coming into history. “Fast-paced” may seem like an unusual word to describe a work of scripture. But Mark is the shortest of the gospels; the adverb “immediately” famously occurs over forty times throughout the narrative. According to Gail O’Day, “it is as if Mark, in his storytelling, is racing to get to the story of the death.” In La Pasión, Golijov masterfully mimics Mark’s pacing through percussive rhythms, complex choral passages, and even dance, crafting a lively narrative that immerses the concert hall audience in Mark’s biblical setting.

By the time the listener encounters a sorrowful Peter toward the end of the production, she has become accustomed to La Pasión’s sonic pace. With Peter’s lament, however, this pace slows: Golijov invites the listener to encounter Peter by interrupting the fast-moving development he establishes throughout with an arresting aria. Italian for “air,” an aria is a self-contained piece of solo vocal music, traditionally used in large-scale compositions (like opera and oratorio) for a character to explore emotion through music. This usually takes place as an aside: arias stand temporarily independent from the narrative, offering acute perspective into a character’s interior emotional life that the audience might not receive from the main narrative line. Initially, the pause an aria brings might seem to detract from La Pasión’s narrative pace. This pause, however, is deliberate: it draws attention to the ethical concerns of the character, dwelling with the audience on pains of the human experience. And it provides a space for silence. “In every Passion,” Golijov says, “there is a moment without words…the moment after Peter denies Jesus.”

Golijov’s work is an interpretation, rather than a dramatic recounting, of Mark’s Passion narrative. This allows the composer to renew, remove, and reimagine the text, crafting a compelling and coherent story in a twenty-first century setting. This interpretive freedom sets the scene for Peter’s lament, for which Golijov sets an aria of a secular Galician poem: “Lúa Descolorida” (“Colorless Moon”) by Rosalía de Castro. In the poem, a weary speaker addresses the moon, asking to be carried away to Death’s abode. In the “Lúa Descolorida” of La Pasión, a similarly despondent Peter faces the moon in the darkest of nights to ruminate over the weight of his sin.

Before singing de Castro’s text, the soloist opens with an apostrophe: “Ay” (“Oh”). Though the “ay” is only one syllable, it is sung through twenty-six unique notes. The soloist employs “word painting,” a rhetorical method in which music is shaped by the literal meaning of text or story elements, to “sing” Peter’s tears in a long melodic line. The soloist is supported with minimal instrumentation from the string section during this passage, leaving her voice largely exposed, communicating a feeling of solitude. The listener is carried into Golijov’s—and Peter’s—sound world, allowing the centuries, in the words of Alex Ross, to “[slip] away like sand.”

Peter’s lament is mentioned only briefly in the Synoptic Gospels. Mark’s account solemnly recognizes Peter’s despair: “And he broke down and wept” (Mark 14:72). He is given no monologic voice but through tears. Yet, these words strike their audience with a pang of sympathy. Composers throughout the centuries have used arias to explore this profound sorrow. Much like Bach in his “Erbarme dich, mein Gott” and “Ach, mein Sinn,” Golijov chooses to explore Peter’s lament through an aria, subtitling “Lúa Descolorida” with “Aria da las lágrimas de Pedro” (“Aria of Peter’s tears”). “Lúa Descolorida” invites Golijov’s listeners—believers and non-believers alike—to consider brokenness, remorse, and the need for forgiveness not in the abstract, but through the eyes and tears of a fellow human being. For a moment, each member of the audience escapes the increasingly chaotic world of Christ’s journey to Golgotha and is welcomed into Peter’s loneliness and sorrow.

Withdrawn from the commotion surrounding Jesus’ imprisonment, and ashamed of his weakness and fear, Peter goes outside, alone. To express the depths of his sorrow, Peter’s tears sing to the moon. In the second stanza of the poem, the speaker addresses the moon as “astro das almas orfas” (“star of orphan souls”). Just as the speaker identifies herself as an orphan soul, so too does Peter become an orphan without the “home” of his friendship with Christ. “Lúa Descolorida” is the cry of one who is empty, longing to be forgotten: “me leve adonde non recorden nunca” (“take me to a place I will never be remembered”). The speaker in the poem seeks to be forgotten not only in this life, but in the next, as well. It is an expression of complete despair. The moon, however, offers these tears a companionship that Peter no longer feels he merits. Just as a star once guided the Magi to the infant who would one day become Peter’s loving friend, the moon now accompanies Peter in his lament. “I wanted the music to contradict the words because Peter, after all, will go on and found the Church,” says Golijov. “The words reflect the feeling of grief of Peter,” but “the music reflects hope and the luminosity of his spirit.”

La Pasión contains three other arias: “Aria with Crickets,” “Aria of Judas,” and “Aria of Jesus.” We are compelled to ask: why might Golijov have chosen to call Peter’s lament “Aria of Peter’s Tears,” rather than simply “Aria of Peter”? By giving voice to Peter’s tears, Golijov allows Peter himself to remain silent. This silence is imbued with a powerful hope, reflected in both the strings and the soloist’s melody. Though Peter weeps, his remorse demonstrates a longing for merciful love. The instrumental lines of “Lúa Descolorida” give space for Peter’s tears, but do not dwell in this despair. Instead, they point towards redemption. According to Josef Pieper, “the world reveals itself to the silent listener and only to him; the more silently he listens, the more purely he is able to perceive reality.” The more silently Peter listens in La Pasión, the more his despair recalls the promises of God. It is through Peter’s silence that hope is granted access to his despairing heart. And perhaps it is through silence that La Pasión is granted access to the audience, transforming the hearts that listen.

Victoria Costa is a postgraduate student in sacred music at the University of St Andrews, where she specializes in musical aesthetics in liturgical time.