MacMillan - Seven Last Words From the Cross (movements 1 - 2): Score and Analysis

Описание: Graham Ross & The Dmitri Ensemble
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MacMillan's 7 last words from the cross portrays the last utterances of Jesus at his Crucifixion. Each of the 7 sentences gets a dedicated movement, where its dramatic expressive power is explored to completion. The music has a very "raw" quality to it; MacMillan doesn't use any metaphors to portray Christ's suffering, instead making you witness the act of Crucifixion in all of its horror, ugliness, and exhaustion.

The piece is scored for a mixed choir and a string orchestra. The smaller ensemble makes the music feel a lot more intimate than a large-scale orchestra, as you feel that every instrument has a unique voice. Another thing worth noting is the different compositional styles used for the vocal and instrumental groups. For the chorus, we can hear heavy inspirations from Bach's own cantatas through the heavy use of counterpoint, voice leading, and dynamic contrasts, while the string orchestra takes inspiration from the more modern 20th-century instrumental music. This produces a violent contrast between the choir and the orchestra, resulting in many overwhelming passages where one seems completely incompatible with the other. And the fact that the two groups rarely work together makes the moments when they do that much more moving.

The last thing I want to touch on is the use of silence in this piece. Unlike most composers, MacMillan is not afraid to explore silence and use it to its fullest potential. The moments where the music stops in this piece are some of the tensest, nail-biting, and genuinely moving. More about this in the analysis of the second movement.

The first movement is built out of 3 ideas (A figure rising in steps, agitated violin fanfares, and monotone singing), which the music introduces one by one, gradually thickening the texture and exploring their incompatibility. At the climax the chaos becomes overwhelming and the music starts to collapse from exhaustion. The second movement consists of a series of increasingly dissonant and passionate screams from the choir, intertwined by long, terrifying silences, leaving you anxiously waiting for the next outburst. Soon the orchestra joins, filling the silences with ever more frantic figures. The movement again ends in complete exhaustion.


1. FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO
0:00 - The work opens up with a cadential figure rising in steps, that continues to be repeated throughout the movement.
0:40 - Different voices from the woman's choir start to enter with the cadential figure. Their overlapping entries thicken the texture.
1:59 - The men's choir enters over the cadential figure with a new idea - monotone singing. Their entries are again staggered.
2:09 - The violins enter with the third idea - agitated fanfares. The different, incompatible ideas all being played at the same time create an almost disorienting effect, leaving you with nothing to grab on.
2:36 - Men's choir takes the foreground singing violent, stabbing figures, as the music reaches an emotional peak.
3:30 - The texture slowly begins to thin. The sopranos settle on monotone singing, while the men's choir slowly takes over the cadential figures.
4:55 - The violins having calmed down join the men's choir with the cadential figures.
5:23 - As the choir and the strings reach their cadence, only the sopranos are left to conclude the movement.

2. WOMAN, BEHOLD THY SON! …BEHOLD, THY MOTHER!
6:10 - The basis of the second movement consists of the choir providing passionate screams over long, anxiety-inducing moments of silence.
7:13 - The strings enter in an exhausted manner, filling the gaps between the screams.
8:12 - Strings become gradually more and more frantic, reaching a climax at 10:03.
10:23 - Exhausted, the violins try to reach a cadence and calm the music down, all while the still agitated cellos and basses insist with frantic gestures.
10:53 - Sighing figures appear in the violas and soon enough the music completely collapses, giving way to an exhausted Behold, Thy Son.
11:23 - The movement painfully ends with the strings desperately holding on to the sighing figures.


Seven Last Words playlist:    • MacMillan - Seven Last Words from the Cros...