In observance of Good Friday, here is an excerpt from J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, his monumental music depicting the grim, inexorable path of Jesus from the last supper to crucifixion. Anyone wishing to meditate on the traditional sacredness of today may find this gentle, caressing melody helpful to do so.

Many of the Passion’s segments use mighty choral and orchestral forces, but this one is small in scale, yet vast in scope. Bach’s original version has lyrics, but to me, his matchless, free-form abstraction here is so affecting by itself that any accompanying words reduce its impact, so the posted one uses only flute and piano. However, knowing its opening sentence prepares a listener for the sentiment that served as Bach’s inspiration: ‘Out of love, my sinless Savior accepted death’ for my sake.

For Bach, that was no pious banality, but the true nectar of salvation, and the implications of those words are eloquently conveyed by the loveliness of his artistic invention here. The piece meanders, suggesting a dazed, stricken soul wandering in lamentation, even as it is awed by the ‘Agapé’ – selfless love of the ‘Other’ – that Jesus displayed, and that enabled Him to endure the cross. In fact, this music may even represent Christ’s own personal consciousness; sweet and gentle, but perplexed – if not surprised – by the unprovoked cruelty befalling Him. When I first heard this, it seemed too moving to be from this side of eternity. It is a diaphanous Shade, benign, but seemingly beyond our familiar reference.

Bach put this exquisite melancholia between Pilate’s bewildered assertion that he found Jesus utterly innocent, and the dissonant bellow of the mob demanding His death. The crevasse between Christ’s preternatural goodness and the convulsive savagery it was to perversely set in motion was a virtual rip in the fabric of objective reality, but with this aria, Bach contributes greatly to mending that rip. He bestows a creation of such paralyzing beauty as to help offset the ugliness and evil to which it reacts – and thereby, help console the very sorrows it evokes.