Bach’s Saint John’s Passion is one of the great Barock works. But it can be inaccessible, it’s long, in German and some parts of it are boring. It took me a couple of years to learn to love the piece. I would listen to it during easter, and favourite the individual monuments I enjoyed, after a couple years I had around 25 out of the around 60 movements that I liked, and would listen to regularly. A couple movements I really loved.

This guide is split into two part, first an introduction to the piece in general, then I go through all movements I like, giving context, analysis, explanation and review. If you just want to enjoy the piece skip to the second part and listen to the mouvments I list, and read the context if something you hear interests you. If you are also interested in the history of the piece read the first part as well.

Part 1 Die Johannespassion

Written in:

sources: St John Passion – Bach

Part 2 Selected Monuments

1. Chorus

Can’t miss the opening. It starts with held notes in the woodwinds, over the strings, until the choir joins an a dramatic moment. Saying Herr, German for Lord. One of the greatest choral openings ever written.

Full lyrics:

Herr, unser Herrscher, dessen Ruhm Lord, our ruler, whose glory In allen Landen herrlich ist! is magnificent everywhere! Zeig uns durch deine Passion, Show us through your passion, Dass du, der wahre Gottessohn, that you , the true son of God, Zu aller Zeit, at all times Auch in der größten Niedrigkeit, even in the most lowly state, Verherrlicht worden bist! are glorified.

2.

First Recitative. This is the mouvment where the story is told. The Narrator explains what is happening, sometimes Jesus and the other characters.

The highlight here is when Jesus asks: Wen suchet ihr? His voice is lower than the narrators so he should be quite recognizable.

The choire responds Jesum von Nazareth

the form of Jesus’s name Jesum will appear odd to modern listerens, but for some reason TODO the latin endings are used where it’s different when the person is spoken of in different ways.

In my opinion these are the best moment’s of the Passion, when the choir is saying something related to the story. Some of the arias are also great.

The chorus is repeated again slightly later.

Jesus is annoyed at them asking again

DE: Ich hab’s euch gesagt, dass ich’s sei. EN: What the hell, I already told you, that I am he!

Pt 1 No. 9

First Aria. It’s nice, nothing todo with the story, can be skipped, but it’s pretty. The flute has some nice moments.

Pt 1 no 12.

Choir has a great moment again: As Simon Peter stood and warmed himself, they said to him:

Bist du nicht seiner Jünger einer? **Aren’t you one of his disciples?

in typical fashion one sentence this is streched out for a couple minutes.

Pt 1 no. 16

They bring Jesus to the hall of judgment.

Pilatus, the judge, makes his first appearence asking the Jews who brought jesus? Why they are bringing Jesus, what did he do?

The choir responds in one of the best sections of the piece: Wäre dieser nicht ein Übeltäter, wir hätten dir ihn nicht überantwortet. If this man were not a criminal, we would not have brought him before you.

Note the fugue like structure, the voices enter at different points in time, it can be very hard to understand. When following with the score it can be easy to loses place, the 4 voices all singing different things, but all the same sentence make it very complex. My favourite moment is the staccato nicht, nicht, nicht, nicht near the end of this section. TODO add image

What I find remarcable is the contrast between the text and the music. This sentence seems very banal, I guess they are calling Jesus a criminal but, they just brought him to court of course they think he’s a criminal, but for some reason Bach decided this sentence needs to be expressed in 30s or so of complex counterpoint.

Pilatus responds Then take him away and judge him according to your law!

And the choir responds with an almost equally complex sentence

**Wir dürfen niemand töten. We are not allowed to put anyone to death.

There is a nice moment where Jesus talks to Pilatus

Pilatus: Are you the king of the Jews

Jesus: Do you say this of yourself, or did others say it to you about me?

Pilatus: Am I a Jew? Your people and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?

Jesus: My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world then my servants would fight so that I should not be handed over to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from here.

I’m not sure how significant this is, but i like the exchange.

Now we’re really in the heart of the action. Almost every non chorus piece is interesting right now.

Pt. 2 n.18

Jesus and Pilatus continue talking, Pilatus asks So you are then a King?

And Jesus responds:

You say it, I am a king. For this I was born and came into the world, so that I should testify to the truth. Anyone who is of the truth hears my voice.

Now comes an important moment, Pilatus responds: Was ist Wahrheit? What is truth?

This is at 47 seconds.

You can tell the way it’s said that this is an important moment. After pilatus asks this question he doesn’t wait for an answer, he goes outside again to face the crowd. I’m not an expert on bibical interpritation but I think it represents Pilatus not caring, treating it as an academic question, not taking serious that Jesus might be special.

Pilatus has no reason to punish Jesus, he didn’t commit a crime in his eyes, but he also doesn’t want to release him and potentially anger the crowd outsie, so he takes the easy out and offers the crowd the choice, Jesus will be pardoned if the crowd wants him to be pardoned. do you wish then that I should release to you the king of the Jews? The crowd responds Nicht diesen, sondern Barrabam! Not this man, but Barrabas!

Pilatus punishes Jesus, maybe through whipping or some other physical torture, in german geißeln Da nahm Pilatus Jesum und geißelte ihn. it’s hard to miss, this weird phrase.

Pt. 2 20

One of my favourite Arias It starts just with the word erwäge, lots of times Ponder

Erwäge wie sein Blutgetränkter Rücken. In allen Stücken Dem Himmel gleiche geht, _Ponder well how his back bloodstained all over is like the sky

quite long but pretty.

Especially nice is the long held note near the end TODO

Pt. 2 21

My favourite mouvment.

The soldiers put a crown of thorns on jesus’ Head and mock him

**Sei gegrüßet, lieber Jüdenkönig! Hail to you, king of the Jews!

Pilatus emphasises again that he isn’t to blaim, he doesn’t think that jesus has done anything wrong.

He takes Jesus outside and when the chief priests and the officers see Jesus they launch into my favourite chorus of the work, consisting of just one word Kreuzige, kreuzige! or Crucify or crucify him! in english. So much in this passage, the different voices are doing so many different things. Again there is a contrast between the text and music, but this time maybe only to our modern ears. It doesn’t sound like bloodthirsty killers, but maybe it’s the closest Bach could get to bloodthirsty killers and not leave the barock Tradition.