Toward the Easter

It has passed the equinox. Sun is shining brighter day by day. Sprouting are the plants and the trees in the garden. It is the time of joy for vivid lives. Red japanese apricot flowers are fully out in the garden here.

In the mid April, we will have the Easter this year. It is the time for me to listen to Matthew's Passion by J.S.Bach.

I have an old score of this music published by Eulenburg. Soiled with finger markings. The cover has been torn. How many times I have listened to this great Passion reading this score! On the back of the cover, I have written that I bought it at Hongou in Tokyo in 1975. There was a music score store there, where I could walk to in 10 minutes from the med school. I was so much touched by this music that I have got this score then, I believe.

The 67th of the recitativo sung by each part of solo before the final chorus and the final chorus performed by Richter and Muenchen Bach Ensemble in 1971. A renowned performance even though the believers in authentic performance may defame it as an old style. After listening the great drama of crucification of Jesus, we reach this pieces of consolation. At least, in my mind, I could never listen to these without tears.

As reiterated in this blog in the past, my mother has suffered from the big earthquake at a nursing facility far north in Sendai. She had to spend a few days there without any infrastructures like power, water or heating. In a few weeks, she got seriously ill and passed away quietly at a hospital as if a piece of fire of candle had disappeared. Her only wish was to return here her birth place and to live with our father, who had already passed away by that time.

Recalling of her and of myself in the past years, I would concentrate on this music again.