Friday 13th of March 2020 was the day that all upcoming performances of the St. Matthew Passion were cancelled. The disappointment of having to miss performing or hearing this monumental piece of music by J.S. Bach could be felt by musicians and audience alike. In the Netherlands – where traditionally over two hundred performances of this piece take place every year – the churches were unusually quiet in the days approaching Easter. Soon after this news had began to sink in, an idea popped up: Wouldn’t it be magnificent if there was a way to perform this comforting and dearly missed music of Bach? Perhaps the Music Boat of Reinier would provide a means to perform his music with voice, trumpet and barrel organ, gliding through the deserted canals of Holland… The deed soon followed the idea and Reinier created a miniature version of the St. Matthew Passionon his barrel organ: “The St. Matthew quarter-of-an-hour” (in Dutch “Het Matthäus Kwartier”). Fun fact: It became the biggest book that he ever made for his barrel organ! Due to the necessity of keeping distance we had to avoid gatherings alongside the canals. For this reason we chose to perform in the dome-like spaces underneath bridges. We were delighted with the acoustics provided by these ‘cathedrals’ of the canals!

On the traditional days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, we took to the water to play and sing. Whilst manouvering from bridge to bridge, we serenaded passers-by and all in their house boats or balconies with snippets of this great music. For those who missed these glimpses of our performance, we filmed our journey. Reinier spent many long nights making this impression of our ‘live’ performance, using footage from within and alongside the boat. This film is our way of sharing our performance with those who we think will enjoy witnessing this (very Dutch…) adventure. To us this project has proven to be incredibly fullfilling. We would therefore like to thank all of those who supported us and were involved in helping us reach our goal; our friends who filmed us on our journey; all audience members for their attentiveness and overwhelming response (during which they maintained the mandatory 1,5 meters distance…), the local police in the city of Dordrecht who supported us enthusiastically by sharing their video’s online, and everyone across the world who helped us to share this music. Thank you!

Photo by Aad van Vliet