The Passion according to Saint Matthew

BWV 244

By Peter Eliardsson

Every year on Good Friday, a Passion was performed in one of Leipzig's two principal

churches, St., Thomas and St. Nicholas. Coming at the end of an extended period of silence in

places of worship (the Leipzig liturgy allowed no music between Quinquagesima and Good

Friday, except on the Feast of Annunciation), the occasion marked a high point in the church

year, for the elaborate, almost operatic Passion settings of the era far exceeded in length,

complexity, and variety any of the other musical genres that appeared in the Lutheran service.

Johann Sebastian Bach probably faced no harder task among his duties as Thomaskantor and

music director of the city of Leipzig than the preparation of the yearly Passion music.

Whether or not he took the trouble of writing a new composition, the performance must have

placed strenuous demands on his energies. In 1739, when the music Bach chose for the Good

Friday service provoked objections from the town council, the composer hold the clerk

informing him of the matter that he did not care, for got nothing out of it anyway, and it was only a burden

Bach spoke as a man embittered by numerous and protracted disputes with the Leipzig

authorities. Earlier in his career at least during the relatively brief periods when he maintained a regular production of liturgical music the challenges involved in the creation of a Passion seem to have engaged him keenly; he wrote at least four such works, of which

two survive. His involvement with the Passion apparently began in Weimar. Between the

years 1714 and 1717, when Bachs duties as ducal Concertmeister included the composition of a new cantata every four weeks, the young composer led a performance of St. Mark

Passion by the Hamburg master Rheinhard Keiser (1674-1739) and also wrote his own first

Passion. (Although this early work has not come down to us, its existence seems well

established, and fragments of it appear in Bachs later Passions.)

Bachs employment in Kthen (1717-l723), at a court that followed the ascetic Reformed faith, did not produce any sacred music. His move to Leipzig in 1723, however, signalled a

burst of intense activity in this sphere. Cantatas flowed from his pen week after week, and he

crowned his first year of service with the creation of the St. John Passion BWV 245. The first

performance took place in the Nikolaikirche on April 7, 1724; a revised version of the piece,

incorporating several movements from the Weimar Passion, was heard in the Thomaskirche

the following year. (In subsequent presentations of the St. Thomas Passion, Bach eventually

restored to its original form, so that few traces of the Weimar Passion survive in the work as

we now know it.)

The rhythm and focus of Bachs productivity frequently altered as his external situation changed; and when, in the summer of 1725, he fell into the first of many altercations with his

superiors, his output declined sharply. By the following spring, the outpouring of cantatas that

had filled his first two years in Leipzig virtually came to a halt, and Bach met the schedule of

church performances largely with works by his cousin Johann Ludwig Bach. Not surprisingly,

the Good Friday music for 1726 also came from the pen of another composer: Bach revived

the Keiser Passion that he had given in Weimar.

The summer and autumn yielded a handful of new cantatas, but Bach never resumed steadily

production of music for the Leipzig churches. He turned his sights in other directions: to the

creation and publication of instrumental music, which he may have hoped would bring him

broader recognition; to the directorship of Leipzigs student Collegium Musicum, which he assumed in 1729; and even, perhaps, to the hope of obtaining a better job elsewhere.

Yet at this very time when he seems to have renounced definitely any further efforts towards his youthful goal of a well regulated church music Bach wrote his St. Matthew Passion, the longest and most elaborate work that he ever composed. It would appear that he

saw significant phase of his life drawing to a close and took the occasion to produce a work

that would synthesise and surpass all that he had previously done in the realm of liturgical

music. The St. Matthew Passion was his last major composition for the Leipzig congregation.

(The few large sacred pieces still to come the B-minor Mass, the Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, and the lost St. Mark Passion of 1731, BWV 247 consists mainly of adaptations of music written for other purposes; furthermore, Bach apparently did not intend the Mass for

church use, and the oratorio is actually a series of six cantatas, each sung on a different day.)

The first performance of the St. Matthew Passion, given at the Thomaskirche, probably fell on

April 11, 1727. A second presentation (perhaps in fact the first, for the evidence indicating the

performance of 1727, while persuasive, remains fragmentary) took place two years later,

again in the Thomaskirche, which also served as the site of two further repetitions, one in

1736, the other in the late 1740s. Just as the creation of the St. Matthew Passion rounded off one segment of Bachs career, the 1736 revival appears to have begun another: the collection, organisation, and revision of his music, a task that occupied him the rest of his life. Bach

subjected the Passion to a thorough-going revision, copying out an entire new score the first in a series of copies of his major works that Bach made throughout his last years and preparing a new set of performing parts, which further refined the readings of the score.

The 1736 autograph of the St. Matthew Passion is one of the most beautiful manuscripts that

any composer has left us. As the noted Bach scholar Alfred Drr has pointed out, the visual

perfection of this score testifies to Bachs awareness of the special position held by the Passion among his works. The composers concern for the most appropriate graphic presentation of the music even led him to write the manuscript in two different colours of ink,

the customary of blackish brown for most of the work, and a striking deep red for the chorale

melody appearing in the opening movement and for all the Gospel words except for those

sung by the chorus. Drr sums up some of the other characteristics of the score as follows:

The barlines are drawn very straight, at difficult places (e.g., Sind Blitze, sind Donner [No. 33]) with the help of the ruler. The staves, drawn with a staff-liner, are always counted out exactly there is never an excess at the lower margin, and a somewhat greater expanse is left between systems, so that

the eye can readily orient itself to the beginning of a new line. The movement headings and the

indications of instrumentation are entered more carefully than usual in Bachs scores; Part II receives a new title page, and the opening title even gives both the real name and the pseudonym of the librettist.

Some time after the creation of this score, its first thirteen folios were severely damaged, Bach

proceeded to repair them with extraordinary care, replacing the outer-half of each sheet with a

pasted-on piece of paper, on which he then filled in the missing music - a remarkable

indication of the importance that he attached to the manuscript and its contents.

Music from St. Matthew Passion served Bach on one other occasion. On November 19, 1728,

his former employer Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Kthen died. Bach and the Prince had enjoyed

an unusually warm relationship; the composer once represented Leopold a gracious prince who both loved and understood music, and with whom I intended to finish my life. Even after the departure from Kthen, Bach maintained friendly connections with Leopolds court and continued to supply music for various ceremonies. He thus received the commission to

compose a cantata for the burial service, which took place in March of 1729. Bachs funeral music has not come down to us, but the verse schemes of the surviving text (Klagt, kinder,

klagt es alleWelt, BWV 244a) reveal that he adapted most of the work from the Passion, using

several arias (Nos. 10, 12, 19, 26, 29, 47, 58, 66, and 75), the final chorus, and perhaps some

of the recitatives (Nos. 9, 18, 25, 28, 40, 57, 65, 69, and 74).

Passion compositions in Bach's era usually elaborated the biblical rendering of Christ's

betrayal, capture, and crucifixion with the addition of chorales and meditative recitatives and

arias. Some Passions, often called Passion oratorios, went so far as to dispense with the

scriptural text entirely, replacing it with rhymed paraphrases; Bach's known Passions,

however, retain the Evangelist's narrative.

When writing the St. John Passion, Bach evidently lacked an adequate literary collaborator

and had to assemble his libretto himself, adapting most of the madrigalesque (i.e., freely

written) portions from Barthold Heinrich Brockes's Der fr die snde der Welt gemartete und

sterbende Jesus (Jesus Martyred and Dying for the Sin of the World), a celebrated Passion

poem set by Keiser, Hndel, Telemann, and Mattheson among others. By the time he

composed the St. Matthew Passion, however, Bach enjoyed the services of a skilled and

sympathetic poet, Christian Friedrich Henrici (1700-1764), who wrote under the name

Picander. While neither profound nor verbally brilliant, Picander's poetry suited Bach's needs

exceptionally well, providing a wealth of images and sentiments expressed in neatly

diversified meters and rhyme schemes. Poet and composer no doubt worked closely together

in establishing the text; Picander subsequently published his verses in his Ernst-, scherzhaffte

und satyrische Gedichte, Part II (1729).

Several of the poems derive from earlier models. Picander's own Erbauliche Gedanken ...ber

den leidenden Jesum (Edifying Ref1ections on the Dying Jesus), a rhymed Passion text

published in 1725, served as the basis for six numbers of the St. Matthew Passion (11 25, 47,

58, 60, and 78). Two more movements (Nos. 9 and 74) adapt poems by Bach's frequent

Weimar librettist Salomon Franck. Picander also made a nod in Brockes's direction, taking the

aria "Eilt, ihr angefocht'nen Seelen" - which Bach had set in the St. John Passion - as his

model for "Sehet, Jesus hat die Hand" (No. 70). Finally he introduced chorale texts into two

movements (Nos. 1 and 25) and a passage from the Old Testament (Song of Songs 6, 1) into

another (No. 36).

The action of the libretto unfolds on three levels. Chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel According

to Matthew present the events of Christ's suffering and death; the story is divided by Bach and

Picander into two unequal parts (not corresponding to the chapters of the Gospel), the first

ending with Christ's capture. Picander's twenty-eight recitatives and arias (the number

includes a handful of choral movements - Bach's contemporaries understood the word "aria"

in terms of poetic and musical structure, not as an indication of a solo vocal piece) offer a

concise and often affecting commentary on the drama. The fifteen chorales mediate between

the other elements: like the recitatives and arias, they connect the action to the present; but

they also belong to the liturgy and thus share the higher authority of the Gospel. The chorales

also affect the music more specifically than do the other texts, as the use of a hymn poem

usually implies the adoption of its associated melody as well. (The chart on this page gives an

overview of the chorales in the St. Matthew Passion.)

The disposition of the chorales and madrigalesque verses follows the dictates of the unfolding

drama, relying on subtle connections of imagery and expression rather than on a systematic

architectural plan to establish continuity and formal coherence. The elements of the libretto

interrelate in a number of ways. For example, their confrontation creates symbolic dialogues

like the exchange "Herr, bin ich's? Ich bin's, sallte bssen" produced by the juxtaposition of

the chorus of the disciples (No. 15) and the succeeding chorale, or the reply to Pilate's

question "Was hat er denn bels getan?" (No. 56) with the recitative "Er hat uns allen

wohlgetan" (No. 57). This movement and the following aria, "Aus Liebe will mein Heiland

sterben," momentarily relax the tension of the scene; but commentary can intensify the action

as well: immediately before Pilate speaks, the chorale "Wie wunderbarlich ist dach diese

Strafe!" (No. 55) heightens and transforms the savage emotions unleashed by the crowd

screaming "Lass ihn kreuzigen!" (No. 54). Other interpolated movements expand emotions

and ideas latent in the biblical text. Peter's remorse, succinctly described by the Evangelist

with the words "Und ging heraus, und weinete bitterlich" (No. 46), underlies the aria

"Erbarme dich" (No. 47) and the chorale "Bin ich gleich van dir gewichen" (No.48), while the

recitative "O Schmerz!" (No. 25) and the following aria, "Ich will bei meinem lesum wachen,"

deepen, then radiantly dispel, the atmosphere of gloom that enshrouds Christ in Gethsemane.

The unusual scope of the libretto (it contains, for instance, more than twice as many

madrigalesque numbers as that of the St. John Passion) probably reflected an awareness on

Bach's part that the Good Friday performance would place at his disposal a larger group of

singers and instrumentalists than he normally commanded, enabling him to produce a variety

and power sufficient for even the most extended composition. The layout of the

Thomaskirche, moreover, made it possible for Bach to divide his forces into two independent

choruses-an arrangement most likely foreseen during the planning of the text, which includes

no fewer than seven movements in dialogue.

Each chorus has its own orchestra, consisting of two flutes, two oboes (doubling oboe d'amore

and oboe da caccia), strings, and continuo; one movement (No. 25) adds a pair of recorders to

Chorus I, and four others (Nos. 40, 41, 65, and 66) call for a viola da gamba. This subdued

range of colours, lacking any brilliant or exotic instruments, reflects the gravity of the

occasion. Bach's flexible and subtle scoring, however, produces a richly gradated complex of

textures and sonorities, moving fluidly from unadorned recitative to massive tutti, and

encompassing such remarkable inventions as the quartet of recorders and oboes da caccia in

"O Schmerz!" (No. 25), the hushed chorus in the following aria, or the ethereal

instrumentation of "Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben" (No. 58), which omits the continuo

to symbolize Christ's otherworldly purity. The spatial disposition of the music also lends

nuance and motion to the ongoing drama, not only in moments of direct antiphony-which

Bach actually uses rather sparingly, thereby gaining greater impact - but also in the shifts of

successive movements from one chorus to another: the Evangelist and Christ, for example,

sing from Chorus I; the turbae (the disciples, crowds, soldiers) and madrigalesque numbers

come now from one chorus, now from another, now from both; and the chorales always from

both groups in unison.

Differentiations of scoring and style reflect the stratification of the libretto; each layer,

moreover, contains further internal differentiations. The Gospel unfolds largely in recitative.

All the speakers except Christ are accompanied by detached chords in the continuo; Jesus

receives a halo of sustained strings (a device suggested by Keiser and Telemann), which departs from him only at his dying words. The turbae, generally motet-like in style, call for

the full ensemble of one or both choruses.

Picanders verses are composed mainly as solo numbers. Bach sets the opening and closing movements as choral pieces, however, and the dialogues (given by the poet to "The Daughter

of Zion" and 'The Faithful1! - designations that Bach dropped from his score) also involve chorus. Virtually all of these movements, regardless of their scoring, follow standard

recitative and aria patterns; the recitatives all have obbligato accompaniment, usually with

persistent motivic figures.

With one exception-the mighty fantasy on O Mensch, bewein dein' Snde gross that concludes Part I - the independenchorales all take the form of simple "congregational settings. The two chorales that figure in madrigalesque pieces help link these two layers of the

composition. Similar connections, such as the appearance of the chorus on all levels of the

action, or the use of recitative for both biblical and madrigalesque texts, perform a further

unifying function.

As the culmination of a crucial phase in Bachs life, the St. Matthew Passion not unnaturally reveals traces of his earlier works, especially the two preceding Passions. "O Mensch,

bewein'" (No. 35) probably originated as part of the Weimar Passion, and it also figured in the

second performance of the St. John Passion before assuming its present location in the 1736

version of the St. Matthew Passion. Some of the turbae also might come from the Weimar

Passion. Reflections of the St. John Passion abound. "O Schmerz! hier zittert das gequlte

Herz' (No. 25), with its quartet of woodwinds and its "trembling bass I recalls the tenor arioso Mein Herz! in dem die ganze Welt from the earlier work. The settings of two Gospel passages-Peter's weeping (No. 46 in the St. Matthew Passion) and the destruction of the

temple (No. 73)-also reveal a close kinship between the two Passions (these portions of the St.

John Passion may in fact go back to Weimar). As we have already seen, the text of "Sehet,

Jesus hat die Hand" (No. 70) resembles that of the St. John Passion aria Eilt, ihr angefocht'nen Seelen, and Bach sets the reiterated questions Wohin? in a fashion reminiscent of the earlier composition. Finally, the concluding movement of the St. Mathew

Passion bears an exceptionally close relationship-in key I meter I form, and text-to the

penultimate number of the St. John Passion, the chorus "Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine.

Like the libretto, the music of the St. Matthew Passion does not follow a strict architectural

scheme; Bach appears to have composed more or less from number to number, responding to

the specific demands of his texts. But while the large-scale cohesion of the Passion depends

chiefly on the profound inner consistency of its writing, several externally perceptible

relationships also contribute to its unity.

Repeated material plays a significant role. Three chorales recur throughout the piece: the

melody used for O Welt, sieh' hier dein Leben appears twice in different settings (Nos. 16 and

44), Herzliebster Jesu three times (Nos. 3, 25, and 55), and the Hassler tune associated with O

Haupt voll Blut und Wunden no fewer than five times (Nos. 21, 23, 53, 63, and 72) in four

closely related harmonizations (Nos. 21 and 23 are musically identical except for key). The

two choruses "Lass ihn kreuzigen!" (Nos. 54 and 59) use the same music, with the repetition a

whole-tone higher than the first statement, possibly to symbolize the mounting anger of the

crowd. The phrases "so steig herab vom Kreuz" and "so steige er nun vom Kreuz" in the

turbae of No. 67 receive nearly identical settings.

Other relationships, although somewhat more tenuous, also make themselves felt. The cries of

"Wohin?" in "Sehet, Jesus hat die Hand" (No. 70) recall the middle section of the opening

chorus; the aria's frequent pairs of slurred sixteenth-notes also suggest a connection with "O

Mensch, bewein' " (No. 35) - a relationship made especially manifest in the following two

cadences:

Mensch, bewein' " and "Kommt, ihr Tchter," which frame Part I, both embed a chorale melody in a rich web of concertato writing. Several of the turbae in Part II share loosely

associated "pre-thematic" material-the general outline and range of their themes: compare for

instance "Er ist des Todes schuldig" (No. 42) with "Andern hat er geholfen" (No.67).

Finally, two subtle details of tonal organization deserve mention. With one exception, the

successive statements of O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden stand at increasingly lower pitches;

the high key of the fourth setting (No.63), which interrupts the descent, gives special

prominence to the first two strophes of Gerhardt's hymn. The arias "Ich will bei meinem lesum

wachen" (No. 26) and "So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen" (No. 33) - crucially placed at the

beginning and end of the scene in Gethsemane-help draw together the opening and closing

tonalities of the Passion. The first aria looks forward to the final chorus both in its key, C

minor, and in its textual images of slumber. "So ist mein Jesus" refers back to the E minor of

"Kommt, ihr Tchter," even sharing the prominent Neapolitan cadence of that movement.

If the secrets of Bach's musical thought continue to resist elucidation, the consequences of his

phenomenal imagination and skill are readily apparent; no words can convey the

overwhelming sweep of the opening chorus, the inwardly agonized lines of "So ist mein Jesus

nun gefangen" (No. 33), the shattering power of the single word "Barabbam!" (No. 54), the

grave splendour of the recitative "Am Abend, da es khle war" (No. 73) and its aria, "Mache

dich, mein Herze, rein," or the restrained power of the final movement. The St. Matthew

Passion, the final glory of one of the most productive periods in Bach's life, holds a special

place in his artistic legacy. Bach himself seems to have cared for it as he did for no other

work, and his judgement has found a happy reflection in the central part that the Passion

played in the 19th

-century revival of his music and continues to play in the musical life of our

time.