The Greater Passion Play. Carmina Burana /
Thomas Binkley, director
Singers and Instrumentalists of the Early Music Institute
worldcat.org |
medieval.org |
chantdiscography.com
nytimes.com: review |
controversy
Focus 831 (2 LP)
1983
Musical Heritage Society MHS 522539T (2 CD)
1990
THE
GREATER PASSION PLAY
Reconstructed from the 13th-Century Manuscript Carmina Burana
by Thomas Binkley and Clifford Flanigan
Produced by the Early Music Institute |
Indiana University School of Music
Thomas Binkley, Director
CB 16*
Ludus de Passione
CB 16*
COMPACT DISC NO. 1 [45:57]
LP 1 SIDE A
1. Opening Responsorial and the Ministry of Jesus [4:03]
Ingressus Pilatus ... | Venite post me ... | Zachee, festinans descende ...
2. Entry into Jerusalem [9:38]
Cum appropinquaret Dominus ... | Cum audisset ... | Pueri Hebreorum ... |
Gloria, laus et honor ... | Rabbi ...
3. Conversion of Mary Magdalene [12:49]
Mundi delectatio ... | Michi confer, venditor ... | Ecce merces optime! ... |
Chramer, gip die varwe mier ... | O Maria Magdalena ... | Heu, vita preterita ... | Dic tu nobis, mercator iuvenis ...
LP 1 SIDE B
4. Remission of Mary's Sins [8:10]
Accessit ad pedes ... | Ibo nunc ... | Iesus, troest der sele min ... | Si hic esset propheta ...
Debitores habuit ... | Mulier, remittuntur tibi peccata ... | Awe, awe ...
5. Raising of Lazarus [2:18]
Lazarus, amicus noster ... | Videns Dominus flentes ...
6. Judas' Betrayal [1:44]
O pontifices ... | Iesum tradas propere ...
7. Mount of Olives [4:54]
Dormite ... | Tristis est anima mea ... |
Pater, si fieri potest ... |
Simon, dormis? ... |
Una hora non potestis ...
8. Arrest of Jesus [2:09]
Quem queritis? ... | Ave, Rabbi ... | Tamquam ad latronem ...
COMPACT DISC NO. 2
LP 2 SIDE A
1. Trial and Scourging of Jesus [and Repentance of Judas] [9:17]
Collegerunt pontifices ... | Hic dixit ... |
Ecce homo ... |
Penitet me graviter ... |
Filie Ierusalem ...
2. [Repentance of Judas and] the Crucifixion of Christ [6:39]
Awe, awe, mich hiuet vnde immer we! ...
3. Laments of Mary at the Cross [4:58]
Flete, fideles anime ... | Mi Iohannes, planctum move ...
LP 2 SIDE b
4. Mary's Laments and Death of Christ [15:08]
Planctus ante nescia ... |
Mi Iohannes, planctum move ... |
O Maria, tantum noli ... |
Mulier, ecce filius tuus ... |
Dirre ist des waren gotes sůn
Jesus | Richard Morrison | |
The Virgin Mary | Karen Young | |
Mary Magdalene | Eileen Moore | |
Pilate | Mark Hester | |
Judas | Arizeder Urreiztieta | |
Merchant | Albert Neal | |
Blind Man | Matthew Pass | |
John | Matthew Lawson | |
Peter | John Rakestraw | |
Andrew | José Espada | |
Herod | Keith Jones | |
Zaccheus | Stuart Papavassiliou | |
Angel | Blake Wilson | |
Simon the Pharisee | Thomas Witakowski | |
Martha | Connie Williams | |
Maidservant | Marilyn Bulli | |
Caiaphas | David Ludwig | |
Longinus | Matthew Pass |
The Carmina Burana, Latin manuscript 4660 in the Bavarian State Library
in Munich, is one of the most famous of all medieval manuscripts.
Discovered in the early 19th century at the Benedictine monastery at
Benedictbeuern in Bavaria, it is now preserved in incomplete form. The
place of its origin is uncertain. The manuscript is best known for its
extensive collection of love lyrics, student songs, and religious
poetry written in both Latin and German. In typical medieval fashion,
the compiler seems to have collected whatever was pleasing to him, or
to his patron, without caring about giving his materials any definite
arrangement or even indicating the authorship of each work.
Paleographical, linguistic, and art historical considerations suggest
that the manuscript was written in Southern Germany in the early 13th
century. We do not know the identities of the original owner or the
scribe, nor do we know the purpose for which the book was made.
In addition to its better-known lyric materials, the Carmina Burana
contains four sacred music-dramas, including two passion plays, a
Christmas play, and an Easter play. There is also a fragment of a drama
entitled "The King of Egypt." The source or origin of these plays is
unknown (though clearly they come from German-speaking lands), and it
is possible that they were entered into the manuscript a few years
after it was otherwise completed.
Those who have heard The Greater Passion Play
will agree that it is one of the most forceful dramatic creations of
the Middle Ages. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that the
text and the music were not originally composed for the play, nor were
the individual lines originally designed to be heard in the sequence in
which we encounter them here. Our play is entirely a composite
creation. With a few exceptions, all of its textual and musical lines
are derived from the liturgy, the Bible, preexisting Latin and German
songs, and, apparently,
another German vernacular play. Only the rubrics, or stage directions,
were written especially for the play. The artistic achievement of the
drama lies not in the creation of the texts and music, but in the
selection and arrangement of materials from a vast repertoire.
The composite nature of the play accounts for the discernible
differences in literary and musical styles which characterize it. The
liturgical materials, often ornate, are sung in a declamatory manner in
which verbal rhythm determines musical rhythm and which is unmeasured
throughout. Those portions of the play that are taken directly from the
Gospel accounts of Jesus' passion in Matthew, Luke, and John are
presented in the simple and straightforward tones employed for the
singing of these passages during the Holy Week liturgy. The two Latin
laments (Planctus ante nescia and Flete fideles)
are strophic sequences; for this recording they were transcribed from
French and Italian manuscripts where they are presented in complete
versions and in clear musical notation, in contrast to their
abbreviated form in the Carmina Burana manuscript. Instrumental music
has been added for those pieces that are not, strictly speaking,
liturgical.
For all of its diversity, our play exhibits a unity of affect and of
purpose. Clearly our playwright was not interested in creating a new
literary or musical work. Neither did he set out to present a
historical account of the passion of Jesus; had such been his purpose,
he would have used the biblical accounts at his disposal and omitted
the liturgical texts which disturb the narrative continuity. His goal
seems to have been to create a kind of sacred representation of the
Passion which would draw on familiar pieces to create an emotional
response in his audience, one which would emphasize his chief thematic
concerns: redemption through renunciation of the world (the Mary
Magdalene sequences) and the cost of mankind's salvation as
demonstrated in the enormous grief of Mary at the foot of the cross.
The Play contains six episodes: The early ministry of Christ, including
his entrace to Jerusalem; Mary Magdalene, her sin and redemption; the
raising of Lazarus; the Mount of Olives, including the betrayal and
arrest of Jesus; the trial before Pilate and Herod; the crucifixion and
death of Jesus, with the laments of Mary. Each of these episodes is
constructed separately; surprisingly, Judas provides a thread by which
they are connected. Between each of the sections is a short exchange
which relates to Judas' career. Following Jesus' entrance into
Jerusalem, there is a brief monologue in which arrangements for the
dinner at Simon's house are made. It is at this dinner that Judas is
first to murmur against his master. Following the Mary Magdalene
episode Judas expresses his outrage at Jesus for permitting Mary
Magdalene to anoint him with expensive oil. After the raising of
Lazarus, Judas offers to betray Jesus. Following the Mount of Olives
dialogue between Jesus and his disciples, Judas commits the actual act
of betrayal by kissing Jesus, and Jesus admonishes Judas for his
deceit: Then, at the conclusion of Jesus' trial, Judas attempts to
return his blood money to the priests and is seduced by the devil to
hang himself.
The texts and music settings for these short exchanges in Latin are
unique in that they come neither from biblical nor liturgical sources.
To be sure, Judas is twice allowed to utter biblical lines, but only
when addressing Jesus. In contrast, with the single exception of the
parable which he tells Simon the Pharisee, Jesus speaks only biblical
or liturgical lines throughout the play except when he addresses Judas.
Thus Judas is kept on a separate plane from the other characters. His
own speech is denied the authoritative language and music of the
liturgy and the Scriptures, and he is not addressed from that context.
The characterization of Judas is in some ways similar to that of Mary
Magdalene, who sings in both German and Latin. The bilingualism of
Mary's lines is symbolic of her role as a typical human being caught
between the world and the things of God. Our playwright also allows the
Virgin Mary to address the audience in German, apparently in order to
move us with her easily understandable and highly emotional expressions
of grief. German is also used at the play's end, in Longinus' statement
that Jesus was "truly the Son of God." This line is a straightforward
translation of the Latin line which precedes it and thus makes
emphatically clear the perspective from which the excruciating death of
Jesus is presented to us.
This ending provides us with insight into another of the playwright's
concerns. He has selected the events he includes in order to show that
the moment of bitter suffering is also the moment of Jesus' triumph, if
only his audience will see it properly. For him, the suffering Christ
is also Christ the King. Indeed, the kingship of Christ is repeatedly
emphasized throughout the play. From the initial processional piece
with which the play opens, we are confronted with the connection
between Jesus' kingship and his suffering and death. As Jesus tells
Pilate, his kingship should not be confused with earthly kingship or
judged according to the standards of the world. His kingship involves
rejection, sacrifice, pain, and death. This kingship is defined in the
repeated refrain from the ninth-century Palm Sunday hymn which is sung
when Jesus enters Jerusalem: "Glory, praise, and honor be to you, O Redeemer and King."
In The Greater Passon Play,
for Jesus to be king he must also be redeemer, and describing and
defining the redemption that Jesus brings is another of the play's
concerns. From the very first episode Jesus is seen calling men and
women to himself, meeting their physical needs, and forgiving the sins
of those who ask. Early in the play Jesus restores sight to a blind
man; at the very end once-blind Longinus claims that Jesus is God's
Son. Yet such insight is an exception in the play in which many people
remain blind to what is happening before their very eyes. In this
blindness most of the crowd rejects Jesus' kingship ("We have no king
but Caesar") and mocks him even to the bitter end. The last line of the
play has one of Jesus' detractors say, "He saved others; himself he
could not save." Thus the play appears to end in defeat, but the
playwright means for his audience to have the insight which the crowd
lacked and to see that it is precisely this moment of apparent defeat
that makes Jesus a king.