Portraying Christ in Music : Fully Human and Fully Divine

Gauguin as Christ in the Garden, 1889

A script of a joint talk given by Henry Lamprecht (my better half!) and me as part of a series on Music and Spirituality at Holy Sepulchre London (The National Musicians Church) on Wednesday 26th March 2025. We veered off script at several points. We were grateful to our friend Ben Schoeman for playing excerpts from Beethoven’s works on the piano.

Christ on the Mount of Olives - Beethoven's only oratorio

Christ on the Mount of Olives by Giovanni

In this, his 250th Anniversary year, please listen to Beethoven’s only oratorio – Christ on the Mount of Olives. Criticised by some for emphasizing Jesus’s humanity, for others it is precisely the vivid portrayal of Christ’s agony in the garden that connects the listener to the divine.