”En ophøjet og for så vidt strengt komponeret stemmeføring, men båret af Bent Sørensens personlige aftryk:tilbageholdenhed, lethed, skrøbelig skønhed."

"...en Matthæuspassion til vor tid."

Information - 2023 Valdemar Lønsted

"Dette er i mine ører Sørensens hidtil fineste større værk - en passion, der også er noget andet, uden dog at sætte sig mellem to stole."

Klassisk 2023 Andrew Mellor

"Sørensen formidler passion med strømme af usædvanlige harmonier: komplekst og klart, men alligevel delikat, som frostspor på glas."

WRTI

"Danske Bent Sørensen har skrevet et af vor tids største oratorier."

Klassekampen.no.

To mark Oslo International Church Music Festival’s anniversary in 2020, a new St. Matthew Passion was commissioned from Bent Sørensen, one of northern Europe’s most performed and admired composers and winner of the Grawemeyer Award for Music in 2018. The première was postponed owing to the pandemic and had to wait the following year for a streamed world première that reached a large number of listeners and viewers throughout Europe.

The libretto [in English] was curated by Jakob Holtze and is made of fragments of the Gospels of Matthew and John, traditional mass texts, as well as poetry by six authors, three of them women. In his work, Sørensen says, ‘lies a love passion. Not only Christ's love declaration to all humankind, through crucifixion and resurrection, but also a simple and beautiful love. The passion for the people we love.