Oratorio: La passione di Cristo secondo San Marco. Buenos Aires opera house

Speranza

Perosi.


Davide Pelissero, Franco Podda, Davide Baronchelli
Coro ‘Johann Sebastian Bach’ di Milano
Orchestra sinfonica Classica di Alessandria/Arturo Sacchetti

Perosi's oratorio is articulated in three sections, written in different periods during the same year 1897.

The first, The Supper of the Lord, subtitled Cantata in the style of Bach, was composed on the occasion of the Third Eucharistic national Congress, called by the Patriarch of Venice Giuseppe Sarto, who was also the author of the text based on the Gospel according to Mark, on November 2nd, 1896, for the second week of August 1897.

The second part, the Prayer on the Mount of Olives, and the third, The death of the Saviour, originally entitled the Crucifixion of Our Lord, were added later. The first and the third parts had been conceived as Cantatas, but this formal definition was abandoned when the three parts were gathered and structured into an oratorio, formally a Trilogy.

The fact that each of the three parts bears a different dedication stands to witness that the oratorio was not conceived as an unitary and consequential piece, but as a musical setting of three different moments of the Passion.