Christus am Olberge, Op. 85

In his Passion oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, Beethoven succeeded in building on the 18th century oratorio tradition while putting his own personal stamp on the German-language oratorio. Influenced by the Vienna performances of Haydn's Die Schopfung (The Creation) and Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons), he composed the work in a contemporary opera style, using a text by an opera librettist to musically depict the dramatic situation of the suffering Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and his subsequent arrest. Beethoven's Christus am Olberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives) is characterized less by religious devotion and much more by the dramatic realization of specific scenes in the Passion story. With its magnificent, almost operatic music, this is a different Passion oratorio than Graun's Der Tod Jesu (The Death of Jesus) or even Bach's St. Matthew Passion, and it is without doubt unique in the history of vocal-instrumental sacred music. This Urtext edition follows the first printed edition in music and text; differences in the text and the libretto originally set by Beethoven are given as a second text, and a singable English translation is given.