Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Easter Tulips

In the weeks leading up to Easter, Bach's St. Matthew Passion is performed in churches and concert halls all over the Netherlands.  I love Bach, and his St. Matthew Passion is a very moving work.  I especially like the "Passion Chorale" that occurs throughout the oratorio.  We use the same melody in our hymn books at Church for "O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown."  Unfortunately,tickets for most of the performances of the St. Matthew Passion were very expensive, but I found a free, sing-a-long concert at the old Sint-Bavokerk on the Grote Markt (the main market square) in Haarlem.

I'm not a huge fan of sing-a-long type concerts, but the Sint-Bavokerk is a beautiful building, and the performance featured the magnificent organ that Mozart played on as a child when his father took him to the Netherlands on tour.  So I felt very lucky to get to go.  It was a really nice performance and a wonderful way to feel the spirit of the Easter season.

And speaking of churches dedicated to St. Bavo, I finally got to go inside the Catholic Cathedral and Basilica of St. Bavo.  Also located in Haarlem, this church was built in the late nineteenth century as a replacement for the original St. Bavo on the Grote Markt since the Calvinists had converted it into a Protestant church during the Reformation.

The cathedral-basilica has an austere and cavernous interior, which is currently under a long-term renovation program. 

It was Good Friday when I visited the church.  There was no service going on just then, and so the church was mostly empty, but there were candles burning in the Chapel of the Holy Cross.

This is the high altar with light streaming in from the windows.  The bronze crucifix has been covered with a red cloth as a symbol of mourning after Christ's death.  The cloth will be removed for the night service on the eve of Easter to commemorate the Resurrection.

And I kept going on bike rides through the tulip fields, usually in the early evening.  The power of the music in the St. Matthew Passion helps you ponder the sanctity of Easter, and the incredible beauty of a sea of spring flowers does the same.

These rows of orange and red tulips were growing in Lisse, not far from Keukenhof Gardens.

These fields are so unbelievable.  Even after going on several long bike rides, I would still be stunned each time by the beauty of all the color.

It's been unusually warm this spring, and there hasn't been enough rain.  As a result, the farmers had to water the bulb fields.  You can see the mist of water hovering over the red rows of tulips.

Sunset over a field of yellow and red tulips--in the summer it doesn't get dark in Holland until very late.  The days in the winter are short, and currently it doesn't get completely dark until after 10:00 pm.