Passio

Abstract The Passio will probably stand as the quintessential example of Part’s tintinnabuli music, in which the tintinnabuli principles function on a large scale to convey a long prose text of very special spiritual significance, and in such a manner that the two cannot be viewed separately. My main purpose here will be to examine the means by which Part has transformed the text—eight columns of closely printed prose in my copy of the Vulgate---into a unified musical utterance, whose power and beauty have been widely attested to by audiences throughout the world. But first I propose to trace the early history of the Passion genre, which forms an important background to Part’s particular approach.