In a few hours, I will be singing the St Matthew’s Passion with the Melbourne Bach Choir, two baroque orchestras, the MacRobertson Girls’ Choir, and six soloists who range from very good to utterly sublime (I think Andrew Goodwin is my new favourite tenor or all time). It’s going to be amazing, and if baroque oratorio is your thing and you live in Melbourne, you should definitely buy some tickets and come along (it’s also raising money for cancer research, so really, you can’t lose).
Of course, having rehearsed this all week, I now have an All Bach, All The Time radio station in my head, and I’m also way too hyped up to sleep after our final rehearsal this evening, so I figure that now is a pretty good time to finally write the post I’ve been contemplating ever since I started singing this work – because it’s a fascinating piece of music, but, for me at least, it’s the sort of music that definitely becomes more interesting to listen to the more you know about it. When I listened to it the first time, I found that it was pretty music, but didn’t grab my attention – but the more time I have spent inside it, the more I’m finding that I engage with it, the bigger the emotions become, the better the music gets. And I want everyone to love this music as I do and be inside it as much as I am right now. Which I realise is unrealistic, but I’m going to tell you all about how amazing it is anyway, because that’s what I do…