YORKSHIRE Bach Choir present Bach's St John Passion with Joshua Ellicott as the Evangelist and Peter Harvey as Christus at St Michael le Belfrey, York, on Saturday (March 17).

"It promises to be a fantastic performance of Bach’s most inherently dramatic passion setting," says conductor Peter Seymour. "Telling the story of Christ’s sacrifice, it also offers a celebration of human feeling in evoking the joy and suffering of man’s pilgrimage on earth.

"It must have been quite an occasion on Good Friday, April 7 1724 in Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche when J S Bach led the first performance of this music. The audience of Bach’s passion setting were to hear music which was in some ways familiar and in other ways unfamiliar. Music of deeply felt devotion and also enormous compositional ambition and complexity.

"Bach didn’t ever write an opera, of course, but there is no doubt that he understood the mechanisms of drama in the way he unfolds the passion with thrilling precision and confidence. What also still translates wonderfully across the centuries are the expressive chorales that in many ways lie at the heart of the whole work, operating as a spiritual, human core to the vivid drama that surrounds them."

As always with Bach, the all-encompassing drama is reflected in the instrumental accompaniment. "This will no doubt come across readily in the vivid, colourful playing of the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists," says Seymour. "Alongside this, we will be joined by outstanding solo interpreters of the roles of the Evangelist and Christus, Joshua Ellicott and Peter Harvey, who will bring a depth of experience and vocal intensity to these most expressive of characters, in what promises to be a real musical highlight of the Lenten period as we move towards Easter."

Tickets for Saturday's 7.30pm concert are selling strongly at £25, concessions £23, students £5, so Seymour advises booking early to avoid disappointment on 01904 658338 or at ncem.co.uk.