Golgotha, oratorio (Geneva, 1949)

It was Rembrandt’s engraving The Three Crosses (1653) that inspired Frank Martin to conceive his oratorio Golgotha, sweeping aside his reluctance to write music on religious themes. In daring to confront the shadow of the Bach Passions he had always admired, he composed between 1945 and 1958 his own vision of this timeless subject, meditative in spirit and devoid of all dogmatism. A supreme monument of the sacred repertoire.
It was Rembrandt’s engraving The Three Crosses (1653) that inspired Frank Martin to conceive his oratorio Golgotha, sweeping aside his reluctance to write music on religious themes. In daring to confront the shadow of the Bach Passions he had always admired, he composed between 1945 and 1958 his own vision of this timeless subject, meditative in spirit and devoid of all dogmatism. A supreme monument of the sacred repertoire.