Bach’s “other” St. John Passion from 1725

If we continue the comparison of the two works, further striking differences are apparent. Firstly, the St. John Passion lacks a final version. It was performed under Bach’s direction at least four times in Leipzig, each time on Good Friday in 1724, 1725, 1732 (?), and 1749 (and possibly also 1750). But each time the work was performed in a different form. A “final version authorised by the composer”, such as we know with the St. Matthew Passion, does not seem to exist. And this again becomes particularly clear with the fair copy of the score (1739). Only the first 20 pages of this St. John Passion score – up to shortly before the chorale “Wer hat dich so geschlagen” – were written by Bach and document a revision of the work. Then, however, the handwriting changes, for a copyist engaged by Bach later added the other movements based on the original score of 1724 which was then still to hand but has since been lost.

How is this to be explained? Bach probably planned a performance of his St. John Passion around 1739 which may not have come to fruition. At any rate there is a note about a ban on Passion performances that year. All this could explain the fact that Bach broke off the revision after 20 pages of score. In addition, he never transferred the numerous alterations already made in the first movements into his set of parts. Consequently, numerous details we hear in modern performances of the St John Passion, for example in the first half hour, were never heard in performances conducted by Bach! These include the passing notes in the middle parts of the first two chorale verses and above all the distinctive major third at the end of the first chorale “O große Lieb” on the word “leiden” (suffer). With all of Bach’s performances, this chorale ended rather restrainedly in the minor key. Only in the 1739 score not used by Bach in his own performances, do we find a B natural rather than a B flat in the tenor part.

But why did Bach perform the St. John Passion two years in succession? This question can only be answered with hypotheses. Perhaps he had initially planned a completely new setting of the Passion in 1725 as an integral part of his cycle of chorale cantatas. It is well known that this cycle terminated prematurely around Easter 1725, so Bach might have changed his original plan for a Passion setting or even had to abandon it completely. Was the sudden death of his chosen librettist possibly responsible for this, the fact that a planned libretto no longer came to fruition? And did the young theology student and Bach pupil Christoph Birkmann (1703–1771), whom Christine Blanken has identified as the librettist of many Bach cantatas (Bach-Jahrbuch 2015), perhaps assist the Kantor of St. Thomas’s in spring 1725 in arranging this Passion libretto, which he later published in Nuremberg under the title “Das schmählich- und schmertzliche / Leiden / Unsers Herrn und Hei­landes / Jesu Christi / in einem / Actu Oratorio / besungen”?

The result, however, is two Passion settings by Bach from 1724 and 1725, which differ from each other considerably. Characteristic of the 1725 Passion is the framing of the work with two great chorale settings: “O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß” as the Exordium and “Christe, du Lamm Gottes” as Conclusio. Additionally, Bach newly incorporated several arias into the work. It is unclear at present whether these originated from an older setting of the Passion by him – possibly composed in 1717 for a performance at Schloss Friedenstein near Gotha – or whether Bach newly composed them in 1725 to texts by Christoph Birkmann. With regard to church music and concert practice after Bach’s death, it is certain that the entire performance tradition of the St. John Passion – from the 19th century to Arthur Mendel’s edition as part of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe (1973) – does not correspond with any of the four versions by Bach.

In point of fact, the 1739 score (movements 1–10) has been mixed with Versions I and IV (the other movements). The reasoning behind this, at least according to Mendel, is the understandable desire that each movement of the work should be heard in its most fully-developed version. But this has its price and overall results in a form of the work which Bach never performed.

But why do we not perform one of the authentic Bach versions of the St. John Passion? The difficulty is that none of the four versions survives in a sufficiently complete state. The first and third versions can only be reconstructed with difficulty because of lost original music material. Version II (1725) and version IV (1749) are, however, performable. And the second version is probably the least well-known major vocal-instrumental work of Bach to this day!

In this Passion setting, Bach devoted himself especially to the two opposite poles of devotion and opera, combining them in a unity laden with tension. A total of 18 verses of chorales represent the liturgical aspect, whereas the newly-incorporated arias focus on a highly dramatic and therefore operatic style. With the chorale verses, what is most striking is the variety of styles of composition, ranging from typical four-part “Bach” writing to arias with underwoven chorale verses. And finally, Bach would not be Bach if he only treated contrasting themes one after another rather than integrating them simultaneously by means of musical and theologically rich, indeed almost “intricate”, overlayering.

As regards the part of the Evangelist and the words of Christ, the second (and first) version of the work is simpler in the opening “scenes” than the revised version of 1739. In the early versions the two high notes on top A at the word “Hohenpriester” are missing. And with the Vox Christi, Bach only wrote the arioso-like accompaniment of the continuo to the intensively repeated words “den Kelch, den mir mein Vater gegeben hat” in 1739. Perhaps this is even a brief reminiscence of the companion setting of the already existing St. Matthew Passion, in which the recitatives of the Vox Christi – and also the words of Communion which are not included in St John’s Gospel – are accompanied by the strings.