St. John Passion – Bergen Cathedral Choir

A passion for the half-hearted

There are dimensions of our being that perhaps music alone can probe. Music remains perhaps our most trustworthy machine to delve the profound contours of the mystery we call God. Kjell Mørk Karlsen´s «St John Passion» adresses the greatest drama, the Ageless of Age´s incorporation in time to reestablish our timelessness. In his church music lie deep resonances, a crashing of mighty waves on the shore of our memory. Re-cognition, a renewed knowledge or awareness arises, recognition of a holiness, a wholeness, easily forgotten.

Kjell Mørk Karlsen´s «St John Passion», commisioned by the Bergen Cathedral Choir on the occasion of its 20th anniversary in 1992, is of signal importance in his production and represents, according to the composer himself, «a sort of consolidation of everything I´ve done to now.» Throughout a nearly ninety-minute long choir movement, interrupted by solo commentaries and chamber-musical meditations, the work recall Renaissance music, with musical inspirations by Gregorian chant, chorales and religious folk-tunes set to tight harmonies and a dissonant register, bringing the St John Passion into our times.