Bob Chilcott St John Passion

SATB and soloists (soprano, tenor, and two baritones), with organ or small ensemble Chilcott's mighty setting of words from the Gospel of St John is a dramatic yet optimistic retelling of the Passiontide story. As with Bach's great Passion settings, the role of the Evangelist is taken by the tenor soloist, who provides a melodious narrative throughout the work, in arioso style. The words of Jesus and Pilate are performed by solo baritones. Within the narrative, the SATB chorus becomes a crowd or a group of soldiers, commenting on the story in short outbursts, although the larger role of the choir is to perform the four meditations and five hymns that support the story. For the meditations-two of which include soprano solos-Chilcott has selected English poems from the 13th to the early 17th centuries.The five well-known hymn texts are set to new, original melodies, which are also intended for performance by an audience or congregation.

24 f

24 f EVANGELIST f Pi - late saith un - to them, PILATE f Shall I cru - ci - fy your King? 61 26 S. A. We EVANGELIST ff T. ff The B. chief priests an - swered, ff ff have no for online perusal only king, we have no fff king but Cae - sar. fff fff ff dim. (cello solo) * Man. 28 Expressive and free q = c.66 p mf p 32 f p mf p *The bracketed section may be performed by a solo cellist. See p. 82 for a separate cello part.

62 36 rit. f p Soft and with simplicity q = c.58 EVANGELIST p 3 Then de - li - vered he him there - fore un - to them to be p dolce mp p dolce cru - ci- fied. And they took Je - sus, and led him a - way. And he mp bear - ing his cross went forth in - to a place called the place of a skull, which is p dolce called in the He - brew Gol - go - tha: Where they cru - ci - fied him, and 40 43 46 49 for online perusal only mp p mp