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CONCERT SUGGESTION“ISTE EST JOHANNES“Meditation in the gospel according to John through Gregorian chant “Iste est Johannes” is a meditation from the second gospel according to John through Gregorian chant. The programme consists of pieces that are fairly varied in their style of composition, the text of which either comes from or is directly inspired by the Gospel according to John. The narrative journey, which follows in an ordered way the evangelical text, is thought out also according to a route through the various musical forms of Gregorian chant. This makes the programme itself considerably interesting and gives it great expressive variety, succeeding moreover in making the listener clearly grasp the “conducting wire” which runs through the theme of the selected pieces. Gregorian chant achieves a truly divine lection of the text of John. In its turn, the fourth Gospel is formed substantially as a meditation of the first three synoptic Gospels; we can therefore talk of a “lection within a lection”, or rather an operation that investigates in depth the meaning of the text, taking from it infinite resonance. The excess light that emanates from it generates the mystery and amazes whoever may manage at least to guess how the thin wire of a monody sustains and dares “to explain” the ineffable. The singer becomes a servant of the Word, and with him the choir in a common sacrificium vocis that does not permit “polyphonies” and which associates all those who agree with the mind and with the heart. The programme begins with the presentation of the figure of the evangelist, the beloved disciple (Iste est Johannes), after which the themes and the key moments of the Gospel itself are developed, from the essential function of the Baptist (Fuit homo) to the miracles, or, rather, to the “signs” of Cana (Nuptiae factae sunt), to the man born blind (Lutum fecit) and Lazarus (Videns Dominus flentes); the crucial moment of the programme, as in the Gospel, is the Mandatum novum, here presented with a series of short syllabic antiphons “Ad lotionem pedum”, belonging to the liturgy of Maundy Thursday. In this moment, for John, we witness the greatest “fall” of Christ, who from this moment on will dominate events and, to the eyes of the already mature believer, will appear as the true winner in the dramatic rush of events. John, in fact, rereads the same Passion as a paradoxical but real conclusion to the Scriptures: the wood of the cross is the place of the definitive crowning of the Messiah King, the “consummatum est” is the inauguration of the new alliance under the sign of the Spirit. And on the cross itself Christ dies, “releasing the Spirit” (Veni sancte spiritus). The joy of Easter (Haec dies) is not separated from the signs of the nails that move the doubting Thomas to faith (Mitte manum tuam). The programme concludes with the hymn Te saeculorum principem, placed in the liturgy in the feast of Christ the King. The Gospel of “in the beginning”, which tells of the regality of the “Word made flesh” as an echo of the oldest “in the beginning” (Gen 1,1), finds in Gregorian chant a faithful guardian and an illustrious interpreter. |
