In Christian music, a passion refers to the musical setting recounting the sufferings endured by Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible. Traditionally, passions were mostly performed in Holy Week — also known as Passion Week — being the week leading up to Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, and are part of the liturgy. Renowned passions include Johann Sebastian Bach’s highly acclaimed work the St. Matthew Passion.
The origins of the passion can be traced all the way back to the fourth century, at a time when the Church would, as part of the liturgy during Holy Week, recite the passages of Christ’s sufferings as described in the four gospels of the New Testament. During the Middle Ages, the priest started to apply different intonations when reciting the biblical account, gradually building up into a form of interpretive chant. At that time, a range of 11 notes were divided into three parts: the lowest four notes were reserved for the words of Jesus Christ in the gospels, the middle notes were given to the Evangelists intoning the story, and the highest four notes represented the crowd, known as the turba. During the 13th to 15th centuries, the story of the passion went from being recited by a single priest to the addition of three to four other voices, all of whom would take on different roles, until it gradually morphed into an early theatrical performance. At this point, a hymn would sometimes be inserted between chants, performed by the church choir, in the polyphonic musical style that was popular at the time, to give us the earliest form of the passion.
When Martin Luther initiated the Reformation, he also promoted the theological doctrine of sola scriptura, which emphasized the importance of each individual reading the scriptures, and not relying solely on the interpretation of priests. For this purpose, he translated the entire New Testament from the original Greek into vernacular German, thereby circumventing the Latin version used by the Roman Catholic Church.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
照片:維基共享資源
Following the Reformation, the passion performed during Holy Week developed along two lines. Composers belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, such as Italy’s Alessandro Scarlatti and France’s Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Francois Couperin, based their compositons on the Latin text of the Book of Lamentations from the Old Testament of the Bible and wrote Responsories for Holy Week and Lecons de tenebres (lessons of darkness) that would have accompanied the tenebrae services in the three days preceding Easter. German composers following Protestantism, on the other hand, used Luther’s German translation of the Bible, combining this with the expansive oratorio style, to create passions on a much larger scale.
(Translated by Paul Cooper)
在基督教音樂中,「受難曲」指的是根據聖經記錄的耶穌受難過程,譜成的音樂作品。傳統上,受難曲大多於「聖週」──或稱「受難週」,亦即復活節的前一週──演出,屬於禮拜儀式的一部分。著名的作品包括巴赫的扛鼎之作「馬太受難曲」。
受難曲的起源最早可追溯到四世紀時,教會於聖週期間的禮拜儀式中,朗誦聖經《新約》四福音書中關於耶穌的受難紀錄。中世紀時期,神職人員在朗誦時開始加入抑揚頓挫的聲調,逐漸發展出歌唱般的吟詠方式。在當時,一組十一個音符會被分成三個部分:最低的四個音符表現福音書中耶穌所述,中間的音域安排予福音史家(the Evangelist)朗誦聖經記載的情節,最高的四個音則留給包含其他角色的「群眾」(turba)。及至十三到十五世紀之間,受難故事朗誦由單一神職人員獨挑大樑,增加為三到四名,分別負責不同角色,遂出現戲劇的雛形。此時,朗誦的段落之間有時亦會加入讚美詩,由教堂中的合唱團演唱,並以當時盛行的複調音樂風格呈現,形成「受難曲」最早期的樣貌。
隨著馬丁路德推動宗教改革,提倡「唯獨聖經」的理念,強調每個人親自閱讀聖經的重要性,而非完全仰賴神職人員的解釋,遂將整本《新約聖經》由希臘文直譯成通俗的德文,跳過羅馬天主教廷使用的拉丁文版本。
在宗教改革後,於聖週演奏的受難曲逐漸演變成兩種派別。屬於羅馬天主教的作曲家,例如義大利的亞歷山大‧史卡拉第,以及法國的馬克-安東尼‧夏龐蒂埃和法蘭梭瓦‧庫普蘭,以《舊約聖經》的《耶利米哀歌》拉丁經文為本,分別寫下《聖週應答文》和配合熄燈禮拜儀式的《受難週黑夜日課經》。另一方面,信奉新教的德國作曲家,則使用馬丁路德翻譯的德文聖經,結合大規模的神劇風格,寫出篇幅較大的受難曲。
(台北時報章厚明撰)
South Korea’s famous kimchi is falling victim to climate change, with scientists, farmers and manufacturers saying the quality and quantity of the napa cabbage that is pickled to make the ubiquitous dish is suffering due to rising temperatures. Napa cabbage thrives in cooler climates, and is usually planted in mountainous regions where temperatures during the key growing summer season once rarely rose above 25 degrees Celsius. Studies show that warmer weather brought about by climate change is now threatening these crops, so much so that South Korea might not be able to grow napa cabbage one day due to the intensifying heat. “We
It’s widely recognized that there are far more right-handed people than left-handed people in the world. Being right-handed simply means preferring to use one’s right hand for tasks that involve only one hand, such as writing and eating. But have you ever wondered about the possible reasons behind the global dominance of the right hand over the left? As with many complex biological questions, multiple factors appear to be at play. First, one reason seems to be genetics. __1__ Therefore, the global dominance of right-handedness is something that has been passed down through many generations of humans. Next,
A: What’s even more horrible is that the five suspects who purposely supplied ketamine to actor Matthew Perry were all his “friends.” B: Who exactly are the five suspects? A: They include Matthew’s two doctors, a broker, a drug dealer, and even his live-in assistant. B: Those scumbags should go to jail. A: Yeah, one of the doctors may be sentenced to up to 120 years in prison. A: 更可怕的是,提供男星馬修派瑞「K他命」的5人全是他的「朋友」。 B: 嫌犯是誰啊? A: 其中包括他的2位醫生、1位仲介、1位毒販、甚至他的同居助理! B: 那些人渣真該去坐牢。 A: 對啊,其中1位醫生可能面臨120年徒刑。 (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
Continued from yesterday(延續自昨日) https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang Finally, cultural influence also plays a role in which hand people prefer. Historically, items that require physical manipulation have been designed for right-handed use. For example, tools like scissors and musical instruments are often constructed with right-handers in mind, making it difficult for left-handers to use them. __4__ While these factors offer some explanation, they remain speculative. The precise reasons for the global prevalence of right-handed people continue to be debated. Nevertheless, left-handedness will remain a phenomenon of great curiosity among scientists and researchers for many years to come. 最後,文化影響也在人們偏好哪一隻手上扮演一角。歷史上,需要用到肢體操作的物品都被設計來供右手使用。舉例來說,像是剪刀、樂器等工具常常就是考慮到右撇子而打造的,造成左撇子難以使用這些工具。因此,許多天生就是左撇子的人可能就必須透過學習使用右手來適應。 雖然這些因素都提供了一些解釋,但它們仍是推測而已。全球右撇子如此普及,確切的原因仍持續被爭論著。不過,在未來的許多年裡,左撇子依然會是科學家和研究人員相當好奇的一個現象。 What Did You Learn? (A) Specifically, different areas of