John Stainer's The Crucifixion is England's best-known example of the musical Passion -- inspired equally by the Passion settings of J.S. Bach, the oratorios of Felix Mendelssohn, and traditional Anglican service music. The resemblance to Bach is in the structural alteration between choruses and solo-voice recitatives; Mendelssohn's influence can be felt in the richness of some of the choral writing, as well as the occasional interplay between soloists and chorus as characters in the drama (similar to passages in Elijah, ...
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John Stainer's The Crucifixion is England's best-known example of the musical Passion -- inspired equally by the Passion settings of J.S. Bach, the oratorios of Felix Mendelssohn, and traditional Anglican service music. The resemblance to Bach is in the structural alteration between choruses and solo-voice recitatives; Mendelssohn's influence can be felt in the richness of some of the choral writing, as well as the occasional interplay between soloists and chorus as characters in the drama (similar to passages in Elijah, for instance); and the entire work sounds like Anglican service music: understated, proper, accompanied by organ, and heavily reliant on choral passages for its expressive content. The Anglican influence explains the work's narrow appeal; the music does not reach out and demand to be heard, and in less than inspired hands it sounds pedantic -- a fatal blow when dealing with subject matter as emotionally potent as the suffering and death of Jesus. But in the right hands, details that...
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