Masterworks 2026: Bach, The Saint Matthew Passion

Berkshire Lyric presented J.S. Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion on May 31, 2026. This represents perhaps the biggest challenge in our six decades of going big, and is the latest in a long line of encountering larger works at our performances at Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood. Most musicians agree that Bach may be the most significant musician of all time, and many believe his 1727 setting of the Matthew passion narrative may be the greatest single work of music in the entire western canon. This three hour work combines all of Bach’s dramatic and poetic power to tell this grand story of betrayal, judgment, sacrifice and death. Above all, it is the story of the power of love. Bach has scored the work for two choruses, an additional children’s chorus, double orchestra, six main soloists, and several smaller solo parts. It was not conceived as a concert work, but as a transformative ritual that can reach across time and space. Audience members are often pulled out of their comfort zone as they enter the story. For the Bach St. Matthew Passion we included a large, non-auditioned chorus of the broadest range of singers to sing with us the 12 chorale movements of this multifaceted work. They were seated just above the stage and rise to join with us in these important parts of the passion story that were known to, and likely sung by the audience as well as the congregation at the original performance.