WE ARE all familiar with the plethora of performances before Easter by early-music groups of Passions drawn from the canonical Gospels. What would Lent be without the St Matthew and the St John? Now a Scottish Baroque group, the Dunedin Consort, brings a distinctive Baroque flavour to an entirely new work, Tansy Davies’s The Passion of Mary Magdalene, given its première in the Barbican Hall in London last week.
“Dunedin approached me about five years ago with the idea of commissioning a Passion from the perspective of Mary Magdalene,” explains Davies. “I have always been drawn to her as a mystical figure; so I instantly loved the idea. She was one of Jesus’s most significant disciples, particularly noted for being the first witness to the resurrection, and entrusted with announcing it to the other apostles.
“The Baroque instruments bring with them a host of radiant harmonics and earthy sounds, bringing an otherworldliness which affects everything.”
The work can also be performed on modern instruments, but gut strings and instruments such as bass lute, harpsichord, and recorders, together with smaller forces (there are only nine singers here), add an intimacy sometimes lacking in larger modern performances. The electric guitar makes for an interesting tonal palette.
The text is the composer’s own, assembled from three main threads: ancient, mostly Coptic texts, such as the Gospels of Mary and Thomas; the canonical Gospels; and the poetry of Ruth Fainlight (born 1960).
Running at 85 minutes without a break, the work is divided into eight Climates, a word taken from the Gospel of Mary describing the soul’s journey to ascension as it passes through seven trials. The narrative follows the traditional path, through Jesus’s healing of a possessed boy, to his own betrayal, trial, and crucifixion, and lastly to his meeting with Mary Magdalene outside the tomb.
Two main figures, Mary Magdalene and Jesus, are supported, as in traditional Passion settings, by a chorus who take various roles and comment on the action. The three women of the Sophia Oracle sing a prologue and reappear at various points, their block chords an interesting textural contrast to Mary’s more melodic lines.
Marcus Farnsworth was an authoritative and mellifluous Jesus from his very first entry, where he silenced a demon with a sharp “Shut up!” The soprano Anna Dennis’s Magdalene was totally compelling, provoking both awe and sympathy at different points, though some might find the eroticism of her beautifully sung “Jesus, how much I love Your beautiful body”, with its echoes of the communion service, shocking. The whole was superbly presented, driven by John Butt’s flexible and sympathetic direction. This listener was gripped throughout.
There is a further performance on 8 August in the Edinburgh International Festival. I hope that it will be the first of many: the work deserves them.