A preview

As our Good Friday presentation of Bach’s magnificent St John Passion on Friday 29 March draws near, this offers a little by way of background about the work and its creation, as well as something about what you can expect if you come to hear it.

Background

The tradition of reciting the Gospel story of Christ’s last hours and death as part of Christian worship during Passiontide goes back many centuries. Spoken or sung to simple plainchant, the words of the characters would be voiced by different readers and the congregation would take the role of the crowd.

Apart from maybe the addition of a Chorale (or hymn), this had changed very little in the Lutheran Church until just a few years before Bach wrote the St John Passion in 1724.

This began to change in 1712, in Hamburg, when Heinrich Brockes produced a poetic text which paraphrased some parts of the biblical text, and added in a number of reflective if rather mawkish texts. Telemann and Handel were among those who, controversially, wrote elaborate, expressive music for Brockes’ text in a trend whose popularity eventually reached Telemann’s former stamping ground, the Neukirche in Leipzig.

Here, finally responding to loss of congregations, the more traditional regimes at the Thomaskirche and Nicolaikirche only relented and allowed more elaborate music just three years before Bach arrived as their Kantor in May 1723. The St John Passion was composed less than a year later, and, typically for Bach, elevated the trend to new heights.

Why is Bach’s St John Passion so special?

Firstly, Bach returned to the scriptural texts and then selected, altered and replaced Brockes’ poetic texts to bring a more serious theological tone to the work.

Secondly, he composed music of a sustained dramatic intensity never heard before outside the opera house.

Thirdly, through his command of highly chromatic harmonies he was able to transform what had become somewhat cliched musical tropes of the Baroque era into music that even now reaches far deeper and more authentically into the human psyche.

While shocking to some as it was, this should not have come as a surprise, as it represented the continuation of a clear and evolving intent on Bach’s part, shown in his weekly cantatas, to offer a blend of word and music that could engage both the intellect and the emotions of the faithful and so assist them in their devotions.

Engagement with the Gospel

In his magisterial study of Bach, Music in the Castle of Heaven, John Eliot Gardiner writes with great insight about Bach’s grasp and musical depiction of the main theological themes of St John’s Gospel, which are deeply embedded within the structures of the music. For instance, the Gospel dwells extensively on the paradox at the heart of the doctrine of the Incarnation, that Jesus could be both God and human being, humbled from his high heavenly throne to come down as man, and then be raised on high again but only through the most degrading death imaginable, raised on the Cross. Note the use of a vertical dimension in the language.

Bach depicts this graphically in the open chorus: the orchestra sets a scene of foreboding with low rumbling strings suggesting foreboding and tension, while two oboes keen out in the minor key a lament full of weeping suspensions over the top. Yet when the choir comes in, it is with a confident and declamatory high-pitched major-key chord on the German word for ‘Lord’ (‘Hail’ in our translation) and a song of praise, and then a quieter descending section to depict Christ’s humbling. Bach clearly understood and could express St John’s intentions. This was absolutely ground-breaking and is partly why he remains one of the greatest composers of sacred music that ever lived.

What is the St John Passion ? Is it an opera?

No, it’s not an opera – that would have been completely unacceptable in church in those days. But it is a highly charged and dramatised account of the trials and other events that preceded and ended with Jesus’ death. The St John Passion alternates between sections of the drama and periods of reflection, with choir and soloists switching between their dramatic roles in Jesus’ downfall, and then voicing the feelings and thoughts of the repentant Christian church and its members, allowing the listeners to meditate.

The drama is told in music that is astonishing in its power to depict but also to trigger emotions. Listen out in the scene about Peter for the cock crow on the cello, for how cold it was, and for the distress in Peter’s weeping. Listen too, in part two, for the brutality of Jesus’ scourging, and for the rising levels of tension, threat, and intimidation as the mob sets about Pilate.

Reflection and meditation come in two forms: the arias sung by soloists, and the chorales. Note how each aria, so carefully placed in the narrative, helps the listener respond and leads them on emotionally to the next stage in the story, whether it be theological meditation, a call to action, or just the expression of raw emotion.

Note too how Bach uses three arias after the death of Christ to pilot his listeners back down emotionally, first through theological reassurance then pure sadness to the elegiac dance of the final Chorus – Sleep well.

The chorales – hymns which would have been well-known and sung by the whole congregation – are contemplative and mostly restful. They must have given the congregation a brief moment to find their bearings amongst all the new musical ideas assailing them. But only to a degree – Bach had completely transformed the old tunes with his ground-breaking harmonisations. Singing them must have felt so different!

How have people reacted to the St John Passion ?

The reaction to the first performance was mixed to say the least, particularly from the authorities, and Bach was forced to make a number of revisions the following year, returning to the original version only, but significantly, in the last two years of his life.

The St John Passion has been quite slow to emerge from the shadow of the monumental St Matthew Passion, taking a while for twentieth-century period-specialist performers to peel away the layers of inappropriate performance practice and so reveal the full extent of Bach’s  thought, insight and ambition in planning its structure.

But it is now acknowledged as a masterpiece, and it gives us huge pride and joy to bring it to you.

With thanks and due acknowledgement to Sir John Eliot Gardiner for an inspiring read in his portrait of JS Bach Music in the castle of Heaven, on which this article extensively relies.