Christ in Simon the Pharisee’s House

Audio transcription

From an interview with Stephan Kemperdick, spoken by Andrew Redmond, bass in the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin

Suddenly a woman enters the scene during the meal. A woman who’s a notorious whore throws herself onto Jesus’s feet and washes them with her tears and dries them with her hair. That’s what we see. Her little valve with oil is ready to anoint his feet. Simon the Pharisee looks indignant and then queries Jesus, does he not know who this woman is and why he lets her touch him? He doesn’t approve of the intrusion. Neither Petrus is happy. Yet Christ blesses the woman. It is Maria Magdalene. And he possibly says to Simon: “Why should I not love her? She’s given me more love than you have. I didn’t know her and she washed my feet and anointed them. Have you done that? No, and her sins are forgiven.”

So this is about the redemption of sins. The evil sinner is accepted because of her love for Jesus. She is redeemed and that’s probably the reason for this depiction.

Audio transcription

From an interview with Stephan Kemperdick, spoken by Andrew Redmond, bass in the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin

The man in the white robe is the donor, a premonstratensian. Yet we don’t know who he is. He is the donor, and he kneels. And why has he chosen this scene? Well, he surely knows he is a sinner himself and hopes for redemption of his sins, not least through his good deeds. Paying for this painting is a good deed and his love of Christ will redeem his sins. This is typical for the times. He is at the same time present in this painting, and not present, he isn’t a biblical figure, and perhaps that’s also why he appears so isolated and on his knees, looking.

Audio transcription

From an interview with Stephan Kemperdick, curator of the Gemäldegalerie and Gregor Meyer, artistic assistant of the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, spoken by Andrew Redmond, bass in the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin

In this composition by Thomas Tallis, you keep waiting for dramatic peaks or an introduction to things that will be turning points, but you are waiting in vain.

[Music.]

Perhaps this is a text that might have been controversial for the clergy because it is about the unconditional redemption of sins. Until then, that was the power of the clergy because they were able to say: "You are sinners and you must do this and the other for us and the church in order to be absolved.“ But this changed dramatically during the Reformation.