![]() ![]() In succeeding generations many other settings were put forward, including Passions by such notable figures as Christoph Demantius and Heinrich Schütz that advanced incrementally beyond the strait-laced models of their forebears in which text chanted by the leaders of the service alternated with straightforward hymns offered in response by the congregants.īy the end of the seventeenth century, Passion settings began to display a musical richness that earlier generations had soberly avoided. By the second quarter of the sixteenth century, two Passion settings by Martin Luther’s own musical collaborator, Johann Walter-one based on the story as related in the Gospel According to Saint John, the other derived from the Gospel According to Saint Matthew-became standard in the liturgy of Lutheran Germany. Special musical and dramatic presentations relating to the Passion were already popular in the Middle Ages, and with the onset of the Reformation the Roman Catholic observances were adapted for use in Protestant services. These events are memorialized annually in Christian churches, culminating on Good Friday (with the sequel, of course, beginning two days later, on Easter Sunday). THE BACKSTORY Modern audiences approach the Saint John Passion as a concert piece, but for listeners of Johann Sebastian Bach’s time it was first and foremost a Passion, which is to say a church-service recounting of the story of Jesus’s final days, culminating in his death by crucifixion at the command of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. INSTRUMENTATION: Solo tenor (Evangelist), solo bass (Jesus), vocal soloists (soprano, alto/mezzo-soprano, tenor, and baritone/bass) for the various arias and also portraying the characters of Pontius Pilate, Peter, a Servant, and a Maid also a 4-part chorus and an orchestra comprising 2 flutes, 2 oboes (doubling oboes d’amore and oboes da caccia, the mezzo-soprano and contralto members of the oboe family), bassoon, strings, harpsichord, and organ. Herbert Blomstedt conducted with soloists Malin Hartelius, Ingeborg Danz, Herbert Lippert, Stanford Olsen, Berthold Possemeyer, Peter Mattei, and the SFS Chorus Fred Wolle conducted the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, PA Bach conducted at Saint Nicholas Church (Nikolaikirche) in Leipzig WORLD PREMIERE: April 7 (Good Friday), 1724. ![]() Its text is drawn principally from the Gospel of John, Chapters 18 and 19 (in Martin Luther’s German version), augmented by brief quotations from the Gospel of Matthew, selections of devotional poetry (some drawn from or modeled on originals by Barthold Heinrich Brockes and Christian Heinrich Postal), and various Lutheran chorales BORN: March 21, 1685, Eisenach, Thuringia (Germany)ĭIED: July 28, 1750, Leipzig, Saxony (Germany)ĬOMPOSED: 1724, drawing on some work from earlier years, and then revised on several occasions before it reached its final form in 1749.
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