Le Christ au Mont des OliviersThe Mount Of Olives Op. 85 Ludwig van Beethoven Soloists (STB), Mixed Choir (SATB) and Orchestra Partitur

The specialist's opinion

In Christus am Ölberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives), his oratorio for the Passion, Beethoven tries to follow a tradition of the 18th century, but also to set to music the dramatic situation of Jesus in the throes of doubt in the Garden of Gethsemane and his arrest.

The work refers to the opera of the time, it also uses the text of an opera librettist.

Beethoven thus exposed himself to criticism from the start: too much like opera, too close to action, too human representation of Christ - criticisms that endure. But it is not doing Beethoven's work justice to consider it as the successor of Tod Jesu by Graun, or even of Bach's Passion according to Saint Matthew. Beethoven's Christus am Ölberge is not so much characterized by religious recollection as by the dramatic transposition of a specific situation of the Passion into musical scenes of great depth. With its magnificent music, very close to the opera, an oratorio to listen and discover absolutely. The edition respects the notes and the text of the first edition, the text modifications of the autograph (kept only in a copy) are added.