The Seven Last Words of Jesus Christ on the Cross

By the mid-1780s, Haydn was the most famous composer in Europe, able to take up any commissions that interested him. In 1786, he was asked to write a series of orchestral meditations on Christ’s last words for the Oratorio de Santa Cueva in Cádiz. First performed on Good Friday 1787, the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross was a musical counterpoint to a spoken commentary: the bishop intoned each of Christ’s final phrases (ending with “It is finished”), then delivered a commentary on them, after which he prostrated himself before the altar—while Haydn’s music was played. Originally scored for a large orchestra (including four horns, trumpets and timpani), Haydn ensured the music’s wide circulation by arranging it for string quartet (Op. 51)—in which form it’s best known today. In 1795-96, he added vocal parts to produce a choral version, for which he composed a new movement—for wind and brass—to mark his division of the work into two halves. Haydn apparently relished the challenge of writing a sequence of seven slow pieces of 10 minutes each—without boring his listeners. His solution was to ensure that the movements were all subtly contrasted in tonality, texture, pulse and mood. In addition to these seven sections, Haydn began with an Introduction recalling the cruelty of the Crucifixion and ended dramatically with the post-Crucifixion earthquake recounted by St Matthew.