Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Gabriel, Peter
Label: Virgin Records
Released: 1989
Length: 67:03
Rating: 4.5/5
“Passion” is the soundtrack to the controversial but brilliant film The Last Temptation of Christ, directed by Martin Scorsese. For the legendary singer and all-round musical artist Peter Gabriel, this project was his second go at film music (the first was the soundtrack to the film “Birdy”, 1985). With it he hit his artistic peak in exploring elements of world music, in this case mainly traditional Arabic and Jewish music. The album was originally conceived purely as a soundtrack, but after the film came out, Peter built up individual motifs and sections even further, so it’s a much more ambitious creation than your average film project.
With the exception of “Long Walk Home” (2002), his next film project, “Passion” is Peter’s only record that longtime bassist Tony Levin (King Crimson) didn’t play on. All the compositions on the album were the fruit of his solo songwriting genius, except for “Open” and “Stigmata”, which he built from joint improvisations with L. Shankar and Mahmoud Tabrizi Zadeh respectively. When it came out, “Passion” was almost revolutionary in terms of popularizing Oriental music among Western audiences. On “Passion”, most listeners from the lands of the “developed and civilized” world were introduced for the first time to talents like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, L. Shankar, Baaba Maal, Youssou N’Dour, and so on. Mr. Gabriel knew how to use his fame and popularity, which were at their peak after the pop rock masterpiece “So” (1986), to put these superb musicians in front of a wider audience, one that would most likely never have discovered them otherwise. The rest of the music that didn’t find a place on “Passion” he gathered into a special companion album, “Passion-Sources”, which came out under various artists’ names.
Together with a supporting cast of musicians from the Middle East and Africa, Peter set out to recreate the music of Christ’s time based on traditional melodies of the Orient. He pulled it off brilliantly, building on the varied rhythmic elements and world music melodies by weaving in motifs of modern ambient music. That broadened the expressive depth of the compositions even further and gave us an original approach that, over the years, has proven hugely influential on generations of musicians to come. The atmosphere of ancient Palestine takes hold already on the opener “The Feeling Begins”, which features traditional Armenian melodies via the duduk, an Armenian wind instrument. There’s no shortage of ominous moods either, like on “Gethsemane”, where Peter conjures up some downright chilling sounds with flute and samples.
“Of These, Hope”, which features the traditional Egyptian instrument the arghul, is a rhythmically rich fusion of world and ambient music. The varied use of traditional instruments runs through the entire album. “Lazarus Raised”, for example, features a traditional Kurdish melody played on the duduk-like kurduk, “In Doubt” uses the kemenche, a Persian stringed instrument, while “Before Night Falls” lets you hear the ney, a special Arabic flute. Among the highlights of the whole collection are “A Different Drum”, with its fiery vocalizations, colorful use of percussion and violin, and “Zaar”. The latter features a traditional Egyptian rhythm that was used in ancient folk rituals to drive away evil spirits. I could spin plenty of interesting, detailed observations about the rich ambient and rhythmic expressiveness of the remaining pieces, which have the power to transport the listener in spirit to faraway places and back through time, but suffice it to say that they carry on the ancient Oriental atmosphere in an extremely successful and varied way, one that matches the pulse of the film itself.
To wrap up the review, let me say a few words about the film, which met with outrage and fierce resistance from church institutions. The Russian Orthodox Church even forbade its faithful from watching it, while numerous Vatican officials urged their flock to boycott the premiere. The reason for the wrath of the church powers-that-be lay in a script that portrayed Christ in too human a light, as a person of flesh and blood rather than a mighty miracle worker and saint. Lead actor Willem Dafoe, whom most of the younger generation probably know best from his role as the villainous Green Goblin in the Hollywood Spider-Man franchise, played him brilliantly as a man with all the human flaws, plenty of fears and doubts, including questioning himself over whether he’s really the son of God.
No less controversy was stirred up by the portrayal of Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot. The latter is shown as Christ’s favorite disciple, who is forced to betray him because he wanted to help him fulfill the noble life mission that the Bible talks about. The most controversial scene comes at the end of the film, when the crucified Christ, right before death, has a lengthy vision in which he sees what would happen if he gave in to the devil’s temptation. In that vision, the devil, in the form of an innocent child, lures him into giving up his suffering on the cross, after which he opts for a “normal” human life. That means that over the following years he marries the former prostitute Mary Magdalene, remarries after her death, has children, and grows old. As an old man in the last hours of his life, he watches in horror as the apocalypse breaks out across the world and he realizes the devil has managed to trick him. The aged Judas and the other apostles confront him, on his deathbed, with the fact that he caused this whole tragedy by giving in to temptation and abandoning his mission. In the end the vision of a possible future ends and the scene returns to Jesus’ last breaths on the cross. Freed from temptation, he exhales happily with the words “it is accomplished”. There’s no resurrection shown at the end, which was yet another reason for the rage of the church authorities. Besides Dafoe, Harvey Keitel also shone as Judas. And in the supporting role of Pontius Pilate, Gabriel’s old acquaintance David Bowie was convincing too.
“Passion” is Gabriel’s peak when it comes to experimenting with world music, and it cemented his role as the leading patron connecting musical talent from every corner of the globe. With its blend of traditional Arabic and African music elements, this superb achievement played a key role in popularizing world music among Western audiences and became a kind of quality benchmark for all future Western musicians who used this kind of sonic elements outside their traditional setting. Some of Peter’s devotees even consider “Passion” the crown of his entire discography, which strikes me as a bit of an overstatement, given that the album is just one of many sonic faces of this musical giant, while most of his “normal” studio albums offer and combine a much wider palette of different musical styles, and with that a more honest look at his artistic character. Every lover of world and ambient music surely has “Passion” in their collection already.
Lineup
Peter Gabriel – synthesizer, bass guitar, flute, percussion, piano, drums, keyboards, whistle, surdo, double bass, samples, voices
Kudsi Erguner – flute, ney flute, Turkish flute
Jon Hassell – trumpet
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – voices
Baaba Maal – voices
David Sancious – synthesizer, Hammond organ, samples, voices
Fatala – percussion, African percussion
David Bottrill – tambourine, slide guitar
Billy Cobham – drums, percussion, tambourine
Djalma Correa – percussion
Massamba Diop – talking drum
Nathan East – bass guitar
Manny Elias – drums, surdo, octoban
Hossam Ramzy – cymbals, tabla, tambourine, triangle
Manu Katche – percussion
Youssou N’Dour – vocals
David Rhodes – guitar
Lakshminarayana Shankar – violin, voices
Robin Canter – oboe
Antranik Askarian – doudouk, duduk
Mustafa Abdel Aziz – percussion, arghoul
Vatche Housepian – doudouk, duduk
Doudou N’Daiye Rose – percussion
Julian Wilkins – choir vocals, voices
Mahmoud Tabrizi-Zadeh – kemenche
Said Mohammad Aly – percussion
Massamba Dlop – drums
Production
Peter Gabriel
Track list
1. Feeling Begins
2. Gethsemane
3. Of These Hope
4. Lazarus Raised
5. Of These Hope
6. In Doubt
7. Different Drum
8. Zaar
9. Troubled
10. Open
11. Before Night Falls
12. With This Love
13. Sandstorm
14. Stigmata
15. Passion
16. With This Love
17. Wall Of Breath
18. Promise Of Shadows
19. Disturbed
20. It Is Accomplished
21. Bread And Wine
