Product Description
The Eleventh Station of The Cross - Jesus is Nailed to The Cross for solo piano, is the eleventh movement of a prayerful devotion on The Stations of the Cross, referring to the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. The music is characterized by recurring themes that appear in other movements of the entire piano cycle of 15 pieces or movements entitled The Stations of the Cross for Solo Piano by John Cartée.
This movement opens with a fortissimo section with repeated octaves in the lower registry. This represents the hammering action of driving nails into Jesus' human flesh. It is marked agitato and martellato in the score.
Jesus experiences a different type of pain here on this gruesome Good Friday. The section develops into a driving left-hand octave sequence accompanied by fast chords in the right hand.
The music settles into a soft section representing Jesus feeling both the love of his father, and also how his pain is so surreal, it moves into a new dimension, so intense that Jesus loses his senses temporarily and transcends into sweet devotion to the Will of his Father. It represents total obedience. This transcendence is heard through the rising accented notes in the upper register, which are moving together but at different intervals on top of a staccato left hand. This ascent to the Will of the Father reaches its climax when we hear the highest note on the piano.
This is followed immediately by the Theme of the Cross (also presented in movements 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 14) which links us back to the opening section. The movement ends with a coda of light but fast right hand arpeggio flourishes.
Jesus lovingly placed the backs of his hands close against the beam, waiting for the executioners to come with their nails and hammers to dig into the palms of his hands, and to fasten them securely to the wood. There he hung, a perplexity to the multitude, a terror to evil spirits, the wonder, the awe, yet the joy, the adoration, of the holy angels.
John Henry Newman
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