And like a Bach Passion or a Handel oratorio, the symphony carries great force.
"More than an experiment - a model for Bach Passions in the future," Tom Sutcliffe called it in The Guardian.
Looking for a contemporary equivalent to the populist German chorales, which provide periodic moments of reflection in the Bach Passions, he seized on black spirituals.
Not enough positive can be said of Peter Schreier's former work as Evangelist in the Bach Passions.
Amid a bumper crop of Bach Passions in New York this spring, a few have held special interest.
In the United States, however, he was heard mainly in recitals and in the Bach Passions.
They played bits of Bach Passions, which Bourgault had not known before.
But the Bach Passions are the true theater of Easter.
It is ideal for the Evangelist in a Bach Passion but for nothing heavier than Mozart in the opera house.
The composer's fugal writing, like John's Evangelist-like role, offers clear homage to the Bach Passions of the early 18th century.
