LONDON - Before it yields its rewards, Sofia Gubaidulina's St.
John Passion first challenges, demands, and intimidates.  Yes, it is
scary-spooky music, with its intensity, utter seriousness, brooding, grief,
unrestrained, naked emotions, extreme dynamics, unapologetic integrity in
being what it is and no other.

Let others be classical, modern, tonal, pretty, aggressive, whatever, says
this music, here you will take what you get and good riddance if you don't.
Bach, in comparison, was Mr.  Sunshine, enjoying the music, the possibility
(promise for him) of salvation.  No such good cheer to the Good News for
Gubaidulina.  Another composer of similar intensity (although often having
a good time) came from the same environment of late-Soviet, post-Soviet
chaos:  Alfred Schnittke.

Her original St.  John Passion was written for Helmuth Rilling's Passion
2000, which also commissioned works by Tan Dun, Wolfgang Rihm and Osvaldo
Golijov.  That was a formidable affair already, but Gubaidulina hasn't
stopped working on it, and today's UK premiere in Albert Hall presented
something much bigger, even more imposing, tough to deal with, and - likely
- greater in quality as well.

This was only the second performance of the "Passion and Resurrection of
Jesus Christ According to St.  John," consisting of the St.  John Passion
and the "St.  John Easter," the latter all newly composed.  The world
premiere of the extended (doubled, really) work took place earlier this
year in Hamburg, commissioned by the North German Radio.

Performances in Hamburg and London (and in Stuttgart two years ago) were by
the same forces:  Valery Gergiev conducting the Kirov Opera orchestra and
chorus (which presented "Boris Godunov" in Albert Hall last night), the St.
Petersburg Chamber Choir, and four outstanding soloists.

Soprano Natalia Korneva, tenor Viktor Lutsyuk, baritone Fyodor Mozhaev, and
the incredible Gennady Bezzubenkov.  I called him "scary" in the headline
because that's how great a bass he is.  After a lifetime of listening to
Russian basses, I can compare Bezzubenkov only with one I had no
opportunity to hear live:  Chaliapin.

The amazing thing about Bezzubenkov is not how large and deep and solid his
voice is, but what he does with it.  He sang more or less continuously for
over two hours, mostly in quiet passages (Gubaidulina let the baritone sing
against the organ and the chorus), and at all times his voice completely
filled the enormous hall that takes in 6,000 people (only one-fourth full
for the afternoon concert).  This is a quintessentially "Russian bass,"
with a powerful, regal voice, focused as a laser-beam.  Scary good.

According to John, in the beginning was the Word (or, rather, here "V
nachale bilo Slovo"), but for Gubaidulina, in the beginning, there was
the organ (played fabulously by Oleg Kinyayev), and the Passion shakes
the rafters with its fortissimo, joined by the orchestra and the combined
choruses, Bezzubenkov overpowering them all with a funereal account of
Jesus washing the feet of the disciplines.

At its essential, Gubaidulina's music sounds very much like services
at the Russian Orthodox church around the corner where I live, certainly
liturgical and monotonous, but infused with a sort of desperate intensity.
Frequent silences only punctuate the impact as the story unfolds not
through the usual highlights of the evangelist's text but in minute, grim
details:  the dipping of the sop to mark Judas Iscariot, a long section
outlining "Betrayal, Denial, Flagellation, Condemnation," four sets of
timpani, organ, bass, full orchestra illustrating the awfulness of it all.

There is something numbing and overwhelming about the music, but at the
same time, it is impressive and demanding of attention, respect.  In
structure, in nature, this is very different from the Passions we are
used to.  In Russian liturgy, to begin with, there are no instruments, no
tradition of an Evangelist narrating or - as far as I know, from my corner
basilica - no singing of Jesus' words.  So Gubaidulina is inventing all
this for herself, not copying Western music, but mixing authentic Russian
liturgy with something of her own.  The result is unique, disquieting,
strange and - again - possibly great.  Inventions are countless, from a
cappella passages to eerie sounds the source of which I couldn't identify,
the great outbursts of grief and pain, even louder silences.

Mind you, in all the doom and gloom, there are quick rays of hope and
light, but they flicker on and off almost imperceptibly.  Think of
"Elektra," without the "good moments," all the muck and pain, but no
recognition scene, no triumph at the end.  Yes, even in the Resurrection,
pain and sorrow dominate, as if the Good News did not console.

It may well be that the purpose of adding the hour-long new "St.  John
Easter" to the 100-minute St.  John Passion was to give the bright side
more of a chance, but it doesn't quite work out that way.

The post-Resurrection story, according to Gubaidulina, is about Thomas
"putting my finger into he print of the nails, thrust my hand into his
side" in order to believe, unclean beasts and false prophets being "cast
alive into a lake of fire," and the "bitter belly," and the seven thunders,
and then the Judgment, complete with all horrors, short of Carpathia using
the United Nations to disguise himself as the Anti-Christ.

There are some "alleluia" shouts at the end, but they don't sound very
convincing.  There is no radiance and Disney-heaven for this Old-Testament
composer's treatment of the New Testament and maybe, it's all for the good.

It was only at the end of the brilliant performance of this puzzling,
unusual work that I realized something I missed all day on Saturday.
Sitting through 12 hours of Tom Stoppard's "Coast of Utopia," being
submerged in the lives and times and ideas of the Russian intelligentsia,
the Utopian Socialists of the mid-19th century (Belinsky, Herzen, Bakunin
most prominently), the pro-forma, meaningless freeing of the serfs, the
failed attempts by the Czars to head towards the 20th century, and all that
- and in three 3-hour dramas about Russians, NOT ONE WORD about religion!
What's wrong with this picture?

Janos Gereben/SF
In Merry Old, to 9/1
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