PROGRAMME NOTES
Bach |
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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) Johannes - Passion Associations between the term "passion music" and the
name "Johann Sebastian Bach" have become so close that there is a
danger of Bach's passions being heard and considered today in isolation from
their historical and liturgical origins. It is easy to forget that the
passion as a genre belongs to a tradition that is now many centuries old and
embraces the histories of both music and the modes of Christian belief.
Already in the first centuries of the Christian era, readings of the story of
Christ's passion, intoned by the clerk, formed a central part of the liturgy
for Holy Week. With the passage of time, under the influence not least of
changing perceptions of the Saviour's suffering, the "passion"
gradually evolved into a distinct musical genre. The first important stage in
that evolution, completed by around the middle of the 13th century, was the
distribution of the story as told in the Gospels among different voices: that
in itself distinguished the telling of the passion story from other
liturgical readings. From the 15th century onwards, at the latest, the words
placed by the biblical text in the mouths of the crowd, or a group of
individuals - the so-called turbae - were sung polyphonically. This
development arose from a change in attitudes towards the significance of
Christ's passion. While the Augustinian interpretation of the passion,
concentrating on the message of redemption, had predominated in the first
millennium A.D., in the later Middle Ages the teachings of Bernard of
Clairvaux, transmitted to the population at large by the Franciscans,
fostered a more mystical perception of Christ's suffering as something into
which worshippers could enter sympathetically through compassion. To this
end, it was found appropriate that the telling of the passion story should be
more immediate, both visually and audibly. The distribution of the text among different singers and the
introduction of polyphony opened up a wide range of musical possibilities. By
the 16th century several distinct forms were already emerging within the
framework of the Catholic liturgy: (1) the so-called "responsorial"
passion, in which the narrative of the Evangelist was chanted in the
liturgical passion tone and the passages of direct speech from the crowd or
individuals were sung, wholly or partly, by a polyphonic ensemble; (2) the
through-composed passion (sometimes called the "motet passion"), in
which the complete biblical text of the passion as narrated by one evangelist
was set polyphonically; and (3) finally, a form which, although it developed
in Italy, was of particular importance for the Protestant church music of the
16th and early 17th centuries, while it did not find a place in the regular
Catholic liturgy: this was the so-called "passion harmony" or summa
passionis, the text of which was a compilation of passages selected from all
four of the Gospels and was set polyphonically throughout. The history of the Lutheran, evangelical passion of the
responsorial type begins with the passions of Luther's friend Johannes
Walter. In these the words of the Evangelist and of other individual speakers
are delivered in the liturgical passion tone, while the turbae are set polyphonically
in a simple style, which was taken as a model by Walter's successors. The
last creative harvest of this type of responsorial passion is represented by
the three passions composed by Heinrich Schütz between 1653 and 1666, in
which the recitatives are also individually composed but still owe much to
the traditional liturgical tone. The history of the form of musical passion,
which was to reach its culmination in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach,
really begins in the second half of the 17th century. This form has been
given the accurate name of "oratorio passion". Its most important
elements are: (1) specially composed recitatives which in the course of time,
but especially after the turn of the 18th century, came to resemble operatic
recitative in their expressiveness and responsiveness to the meaning of the
words; (2) the inclusion of chorales for the congregation (this had been the
practice since the end of the 16th century); (3) the inclusion of poetic
texts, not taken from the Gospels and sometimes specially written; (4) the
use of instruments in increasing numbers and the gradual extension of their
role. |
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St
Thomas Church, Leipzig |
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From the standpoint of the history of theology and modes of
belief, particular significance attaches to the third of the above elements:
the addition of extraneous material to the Gospel text. This can be
connected, to a certain extent at least, to the rise of Pietism in Germany.
The individual Christian's concern with his or her own soul, and the inner
religious life was a crucial element in Pietism, and it led to an urge to
share "compassionately" in the sufferings of Christ. A new
awareness of religious states of mind, new emotions of personal piety, sprang
to life. The effect of this was demonstrated in the oratorio passion, up to
and including the passions of Bach. It is illustrated by, among other things,
the growing preponderance, during the course of the 17th century, of hymns
concerned with the first person singular ("Ich" or "I"),
as opposed to the solidarity expressed by the plural pronoun ("Wir"
or "we") of hymns of the Reformation era ("Ich bin's, ich
sollte büßen" and "Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden" are just two
examples, both from Bach's St. Matthew Passion). The lyrical additions to the
passion text often also centre on the first person singular: for example, the
aria "Ich folge dir gleichfalls mit freudigen Schritten" from the
St. John Passion. If the inclusion of chorales from the late 16th century
onwards can be understood as the expression of a new sense of the
congregation dating from the Reformation, it is hardly a coincidence that the
addition of non-biblical religious lyrics, expressing the faith and piety of
the individual, starts soon after the middle of the 17th century, at more or
less exactly the same time as the rise of Pietism. Another new feature of about the same period, though it is
already found in Schütz, is that the words spoken in the story by individuals
are no longer set polyphonically as most still were in the 16th century, but
as solos. It had been customary for some time by now that a bass soloist sang
the words of Christ, but now it was also the case with Peter and Pilate,
while sopranos sang the words of the maid and Pilate's wife. Choral polyphony
was now reserved for the chorales (and these were sometimes monophonic), the
(at this date still brief) opening and concluding choruses, and (as already
in the 15th and 16th centuries) the turbae. By 1700 the oratorio passion, with its many constituent sections
and diversity of musical forms, had already assumed the essentials of the
genre, as we know it in Bach. What it still lacked, and what is to be found
in Bach's passions of the 1720s, was (1) the solos and duets constructed on
the model of the large-scale da capo arias and duets in the Italian style,
and (2) the expansion of the opening and concluding choruses to form
essential structural elements of the passion, which was now usually a
two-part structure. With the introduction of the large-scale aria, and with
the recitative, too, becoming more Italian in style, the passion moved closer
to oratorio and also to opera; the growing importance of the instrumental
ensemble is another reflection of the move. The outstanding musical and artistic achievement of J .S. Bach
in his passions - quite apart from the quality of the individual choruses,
chorales, arias and recitatives - is that the biblical text remains at the
heart of what is expressed in each work, in spite of all the additional
material that was at that time conventional. Another notable feature, which
may have to do with a local Leipzig tradition, is the particularly large
number of chorales, by comparison with other contemporary passions: 11 in the
St. John Passion, 13 in the St. Matthew, and 16 in the St. Mark (as it has
been reconstructed). It is above all in the chorales that Bach's traditional
view of the congregation is expressed, for the tunes were all well known to
regular churchgoers. He also observes the liturgical tradition with respect
to the soloists: the Evangelist's narrative is assigned to a tenor, as was
customary from the 13th or 14th century until well into the 18th, and the
words of Jesus to a bass. The turbae are polyphonic, as they had been since
even before Luther's day, though now the polyphony is of very great
refinement. Thus it can be seen that Bach's interpretation of the passion
rests on the biblical and liturgical tradition as it was coloured by
Lutheranism, but it was also influenced by a personal piety aired in the
freer musical expression of the ariosos and arias and rooted ultimately, it
would seem, in Pietism. Finally, there is probably an association between
that and the traditions of worship in Leipzig. |
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In all likelihood, the St. John Passion was originally performed
in Holy Week 1724, in a first version, as part of a church service. The fact
that the work is in two parts, like the cantatas and most other oratorio
passions of around and after 1700, is because the sermon would have been
preached between them. It was sung again in 1725 and on that occasion five
movements of the first version were replaced by new pieces, probably to
accommodate the passion more readily in that year's cantata cycle. In
particular, the large chorale movement "0 Mensch, bewein dein Sünde
gross" should be mentioned: subsequently used in the St. Matthew Passion
as the conclusion of Part One, it was originally the opening movement of the
1725 version of the St. John Passion. On later occasions Bach reverted to the
1724 version, but the emendation and alteration of the St. John Passion went
on, right until the last years of his life, so that it is not really possible
to speak of a definitive version of the work at all. Although the two
passions by J.S. Bach, which survive complete, belong to the same tradition,
there are important differences between them, affecting both their overall
structure and their character. Compared to the St. Matthew Passion, with its
numerous lyrical arias and ariosos and its integrated tonal scheme, the St. John
Passion is more dramatic, with its trial scenes, and in some respects more
audacious, too. It also transmits a nobly reflective quality in its
concluding chorus, "Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine", and
especially in the prayer-like final chorale" Ach Herr, laß dein lieb
Engelein". As we have seen, the tradition to which Bach's passions
belong, in terms of the history of both music and the development of
Christian faith, stretches back to the Middle Ages if we take the longest
view, certainly to the Protestant Reformation, and most particularly to the
turn of the 18th century. Bach both continued this tradition in his own time,
and brought it up to date. Thus the greatness of these works consists not
only in their unique artistic quality but also in the particular place they
occupy in an important tradition. After Bach, the passion as a genre almost
completely disappeared for well over a hundred years, and has been revived
with a few instances only in the 20th century. Yet, at least since
Mendelssohn's performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829, Bach's passions
have lived on, an inalienable inheritance which each generation must explore
and interpret anew. Programme
design and notes: Graham Anstey |
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