Passions is an American soap opera which aired on NBC from July 5, 1999 to September 7, 2007 and on The 101 Network from September 17, 2007 to August 7, 2008.
Passions follows the lives and loves, and various romantic and paranormal adventures of the residents of Harmony. Story-lines center on the interactions among members of its multi-racial core families — the African American Russells, white Cranes and Bennetts, and half-Mexican half-Irish Lopez-Fitzgeralds — as well as the supernatural, including town witch Tabitha Lenox.
In January 2007, NBC canceled Passions but later handed it over to The 101 Network. The show aired its final NBC episode on September 7, 2007. Created by writer James E. Reilly and produced by NBC Studios, the series was subsequently picked up by direct broadcast satellite service DirecTV, which broadcast new episodes airing on its exclusive channel The 101. Passions aired its first DirectTV episode on September 17, 2007. In December 2007, DirecTV decided not to renew its contract for the series, and the studio was unable to sell the show elsewhere. The final episode aired on DirecTV on August 7, 2008.
As Thomaskantor Johann Sebastian Bach provided Passion music for Good Friday services in Leipzig. The extant St Matthew Passion and St John Passion are the best known Passion oratorios composed by Bach.
According to his "Nekrolog", the 1754 obituary written by Johann Friedrich Agricola and the composer's son Carl Philipp Emanuel, Bach wrote "five Passions, of which one is for double chorus". The double chorus one is easily identified as the St Matthew Passion. The St John Passion is the only extant other one that is certainly composed by Bach. The libretto of the St Mark Passion was published in Bach's time, allowing reconstruction based on the pieces Bach is known to have parodied for its composition, while the extant St Luke Passion likely contains little or no music composed by Bach. Which Bach compositions, apart from the known ones, may have been meant in the obituary remains uncertain.
The St John Passion is shorter and has simpler orchestration than the St Matthew Passion. The St John Passion has been described as more realistic, faster paced and more anguished than the reflective and resigned St. Matthew Passion.
In philosophy and religion the passions are the instinctive, emotional, primitive drives in a human being (including, for example, lust, anger, aggression and jealousy) which a human being must restrain, channel, develop and sublimate in order to be possessed of wisdom. Passions in religion and philosophy have a different connotation from the popular concept of passion which is generally seen as a positive emotion. The philosophical notion of passion, in contrast, is identified with innate or biologically driven emotional states regarded in ancient philosophies and the great religions as being the basis for deadly sins and seen as leading to various social and spiritual ills such as unstable relationships, broken marriages, lack of social integration, psychological disorders and other problems. In the philosophical tradition of the west passion is often placed in opposition to reason. Reason is advocated in the control of passion, something seen as desirable and necessary for the development of a mature, civilized human being. This is achieved by the cultivation of virtue. Four virtues in particular have long been seen as of especial value in this regard.