Understanding Bach's Passions

Bach’s Passions are among the most important and well-loved works in the choral repertoire. They are performed regularly throughout the world, as well as being readily accessible on CD and DVD recordings. They continue to delight, challenge and astound people who have heard them many times, or who encounter these masterpieces for the first time. Despite their popularity and exposure Bach’s Passions are not always understood - being variously considered as static operas, independent oratorios, anti-Semitic propaganda, etc - because they are usually heard within contexts that are very different from what the composer had in mind when creating them. Today they are heard as independent concert music whereas they originated as dependent worship music, the product of specific historical, liturgical, theological, hymnodical and hermeneutical traditions. This book is an investigation of these five primary backgrounds and contexts in order to provide hearer and performer alike with a deeper understanding of these remarkable works. The first section charts the history of the pre-Bach Passion, from the early beginnings until the eighteenth-century. The second section deals with the liturgical functions of the Passion narratives in Lutheran usage throughout Lent and Holy week, especially in Leipzig where Bach was responsible for annual Passion performances for the twenty-seven years he was the Thomaskantor. The third section explores the theology of the Passion as expounded in sermons by Luther and later Lutheran theologians, especially the sermons and Bible commentaries that Bach had access to in his own personal library. These writings illuminate Bach’s particular settings of the Passion narratives as well as his compositional choices for the extra-Biblical movements that punctuate the Biblical narratives. Section four, is devoted to the chorales in the Passions, in which Bach seeks to involve his hearers in the unfolding events that lead to the cross. These hymn