Passio-Compassio calls for philosophical reflection. A socratic dialogue. #hf12

Dodo reviewers Maarten Baanders and Mariska van der Meij both attended the performance Passio-Compassio, and struck up a conversation.

 

- From the Passio-Compassio programme book - 

All people experience suffering, regardless of religion or cultural background. Like love, suffering also results in passion. Art and religion are both capable of transcending the cycle of suffering and passion. When that happens, the pure emotion of passion is transformed into a universal consciousness in which we also perceive the other. Passion becomes Compassion. 

 

Mariska van der Meij:

Maarten, before we entered the theatre, you said we would experience a rather idealistic performance, about connecting east and west. And you didn't know if it would work.

 

Maarten Baanders:

Bach with an oriental sauce over it: I expected to constantly yearn for the original. I generally tend to think that music should be performed untouched. Insofar as that is possible, of course. Hence, I went into the hall a little hesitant.

 

Fadia El-Hage - singer

 

Mariska van der Meij:

For me, it worked wonderfully. I am not a supporter of authenticity like some early music lovers. Gustav Leonhardt, pioneer of historical performance practice, would turn in his grave at an arrangement of J.S. Bach's passions as it was done in Passio-Compassio.

Strange, actually, because Mr Bach himself was not exactly a saintly bean in dealing 'authentically' with note material either. He arranged, for instance, the famous Stabat Mater by Pergolesi for the German text of psalm 51. Pergolesi's Amen closes in a minor key, but Bach had a nice disregard for that. He composed a second 'Amen' behind. In major!

Which is more authentic: a performance of Bach on period instruments or a contemporary performance of a Persian mountain arrangement of Bach? Both Bach and Persia are far from us. The former in time; the latter in place.

The question then arises: what exactly is authenticity? Authenticity can also be understood in the sense of 'sincere'. An artistic expression that speaks straight to the heart.

 

Maarten Baanders:

I have to admit that I am also 'converted'. Especially in the second half, I thought it sounded magisterial and the music totally dragged me along.

Bach got a whole new kind of rapture, just as the languid, sweltering sun in the middle east can also make you feel lifted out of your mundane limitations.

 

Mariska van der Meij:

I too had to get used to it. Not so much to Bach's Erbarme dich in a strange Arabic jacket, as more to the text. Differences between Arab and European musicians were intriguing. The former played their voices, flutes or strings in an omnipresent manner.

But the texts confused me. I found that without the ritual of the St Matthew Passion-as-concert-with-Easter, the texts touched me much more. The meaning suddenly became 'real'. "I'll make up my own mind about this Jesus," I heard myself thinking. Strange. Because I never think about that anymore during authentic performances. Then text is a given.

 

Maarten Baanders:

Indeed, the text. Indeed, the idealism I mentioned was also about the content of the performance. It mixed texts of very different origins: the words of Bach's passion music, Persian poetry by the mystic Rumi and other religious texts.

They constantly caught my attention and had a charge that completely matched the musical mood.

This mix of texts expresses the idealistic idea that religious experiences are close to each other, whether Christian or Muslim or some other background. Religions have sharp edges, i.e. they are intolerant of each other, and those sharp edges are nicely removed here.

 

Mariska van der Meij:

What a wonderful coming together of the pietistic texts of Bach's librettist Picander and the mystical poetry of the Persian Jalal ad-Din Rumi. Both emphasised the personal, the singular, of the search for faith and love:

Are you determined to pursue the Friend,

O heart, then practise renunciation:

give up body and soul to the fire

Always remains the butterfly's first duty 

- Rumi - 

This performance perhaps aimed at an idealistic bridging of east and west, or religious tolerance. But it achieved for me a very personal transcendence - through the connection of east and west, of old and new. Is that cultural relativism?

 

Maarten Baanders:

I had the same hesitation upon entering the room: doesn't religion-relativism lead to loss of depth and character?

 

 

Mariska van der Meij:

Yet it is not relativism, I think. It is a contemporary expression of mysticism: establishing a personal connection with God. As tacky as that sounds. That is why I am a firm believer in the creative reuse of art (including religious art). Refocusing ears and eyes. Seeing the beauty of the past with fresh eyes.

 

Maarten Baanders:

In the end, I don't see it as relativism either. The rapture was too convincing for that.

The dancing dervishes radiated the same. The way they were absorbed in their revolutions was breathtaking and very intense. However introspective each danced, they made it feel like they were floating all over the earth.