I know Easter was last week, but I recently discovered Frank Martin’s Golgotha Mass and had to share it with you. This is a fantastic piece written by an underrated composer, a piece full of emotional depth that mixes elements of modernism, impressionism, the German romantic tradition, and more. We will be hearing the first movement of the Mass today.

Frank Martin was a Swiss composer who lived from 1890 to 1974. He lived most of his life in the Netherlands, but established the now-famous Chamber Music Society of Geneva before he left Switzerland. His compositions range from chamber music to symphonies and everything in between (including a stunning violin concerto), but the primary inspiration for his music was his Christian faith. Like his hero J.S. Bach, Martin’s faith was the sole motivation and aim of his efforts as a composer.

Martin wrote the Golgotha Mass after viewing a series of etchings by Rembrandt at an art museum. The etchings depicted the three crosses on Calvary. Light pours down on the central cross, on which the crucified Christ hangs in agony. Martin was so affected by the etchings that he went home and immediately began working on a Mass.

Martin described the Mass this way: “My idea was for us to relive the sacred drama, and especially to evoke the divine person of Christ; to show him first of all in action, condemning the hypocritical Pharisees with the same vigor as when he drove the traders out of the temple; subsequently to show him during the Last Supper, preparing his disciples for his parting; then in his anguish at Gethsemane. Finally, in the second part, to show him replying to the High Priest and to Pilate with divine peace and authority.” In a break from tradition, Martin did not use the texts of the Gospels for the Mass. Rather, he used texts written by St. Augustine, which he called “long mediations on the mystery of the Passion.”

This is a truly masterful work, one that is vastly under-appreciated in the contemporary canon. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

T