MacMillan’s St Luke Passion was generated in part through a process that entailed the composer working with a group of theologians from Duke and Cambridge Universities. This, in addition to the fact it sets a biblical text, makes it an eminently suitable work to consider from a distinctively theological point of view. This chapter will focuses on a number of unusual features of the score: for example, the way in which Luke’s passion narrative is set in the wider context of the Annunciation and the Ascension; the assignment of the part of Jesus to a girls’ choir; the manner in which the work invites a strongly gendered (‘feminine’) reading when set in contrast to MacMillan’s (arguably more ‘masculine’) St John Passion; the extensive use of rich tonal material within the narrative sections; and the relatively modest orchestral and choral forces MacMillan deploys in ‘dramatic’ works. Attention will be paid to the extent to which these factors are associated with the distinctiveness and uniqueness of the Lucan text itself, and the extent to which they derive from non-Scriptural factors.

MacMillan has never lost the direct connection with his homeland. While his link with his cultural identity is not refracted through nostalgia for the lost immediacy of the cultural environment, there is a nostalgia present in MacMillan’s work for what has been ‘lost’ to Scottish culture through the Reformation. MacMillan sees as part of his compositional ‘mission’ to engage in ‘acts of remembrance’, restoring what has been lost. This encompasses a wide spectrum of ideas, from the purely musical, to the connection of music to the spiritual, from a response to the local, to an engagement with the national. Two related works which embody these dialectics are the St John and St Luke Passions. The Passion narrative pervades both MacMillan’s religious works and some of his most abstract compositions. His two completed Passions are determinedly international in their reach and yet reflect a personal commitment to the meaning and significance of the religious narrative. These facets are reflected in the choices MacMillan makes in his approach to the setting: the works draw upon the established traditions of this chapter will explores some of the paradoxes that this creates.