Bach is stated to have written a Passion music in five different
shapes. Two of these are the familiar _Passions according to S.
Matthew_ and _S. John_, which are the truest reflexion of the master’s
genius in his ripest years. The other three were long supposed to
have been lost, unless a _S. Luke Passion_, which exists in Bach’s
autograph, might possibly be claimed as his work. Lately, however, the
acute study of Dr. Rust has discovered part of a _S. Mark Passion_ to
lie hid under the guise of the _Dirge for the Queen of Poland_, Bach
having sought in this way to give permanence to a work of which the
original motive was merely fugitive;[55] and Professor Spitta has made
it probable that Bach also wrote the music to a Passion following the
text of no single evangelist, which was produced at the Thomaskirche
in 1725.[56] He further offers an elaborate and conclusive defence
of the genuineness of the _S. Luke Passion_, which he places without
hesitation in the early years of Bach’s residence at Weimar.[57]
The _S. John Passion_ comes second in the series, and was brought out
in 1724. Of the presumptive work of 1725, above-mentioned, a solitary
chorus exists in record. The _Passion according to S. Matthew_ follows
in 1729; and last of all, in 1731, that _according to S. Mark_. The
printed text of this, which we still possess, was adapted by Picander
to the _Dirge_ of 1727; but it had necessarily to be greatly augmented
for the occasion, and of this supplemental music nothing remains to us.
The dramatic presentment of the passion of Jesus Christ is one of
the oldest traditions of the German people. A continuous line unites
the Passion Play of Ober-Ammergau with the Mystery of the medieval
church. In this respect the reformation made no change in the popular
religious custom. We may find it at Zittau, in 1571, when a stage was
erected in the church, and the drama acted by the schoolmasters and
choir; or we may trace it in every part of Silesia, Upper Saxony, and
Thuringia, down to the close of the seventeenth century. Side by side
this popular representation stood the church usage of distributing the
parts of the passion-narrative between the officiating priest and the
choir, a usage which plainly took its origin in a desire to give life
to the Latin words. The necessity of it was removed when the Gospel
came to be recited in the vernacular tongue, but the habit had struck
too deep roots in the heart of the people to be interfered with. The
Catholic wont survived, with so much else in the Lutheran churches of
Middle Germany; and the musical Passion remained, at Leipzig at least,
a part of the regular service until the second half of the eighteenth
century. German Passions at once sprang up, and won an ever-increasing
popularity, since it was now attempted to exalt their religious
impression by an artistic treatment of the subject as a whole. At first
the music hardly departed from the strict medieval recitation; then
it was varied by the introduction of hymns; the form of the motet was
added, and found so attractive that it was applied universally and
nothing was left for a _solo_ voice. The recited Gospel—once the basis
of the whole—seemed to be falling into disuse, when it was suddenly
revived in the shape of the new Italian discovery, the _recitative_,
especially in that most expressive variety, the _arioso_. Instrumental
accompaniment became the rule; the story was interrupted by short
symphonies; above all, the _aria_ was introduced, to give stress to
the spiritual feeling of the text, as a sort of emotional commentary.
Finally, the Italian importation was naturalised, as it were, by
the insertion of chorales, at first sung by the congregation, and
increasing in number to twenty, thirty, or even more.
Hitherto the foreign element had been drawn from the concerted music
of the Italian churches. A more potent influence entered Germany
during Bach’s youth, that namely which proceeded from the Italian
theatre—opera or oratorio, it mattered little; for in each, though the
form was different, the spirit was the same.[58] The first result in
Germany has an analogy in the contemporary stage of the history of the
church cantata. The place of the chorale or direct biblical recitative
was taken by poems written for the occasion; it was sought to realise
a religious impression, not by these plain and popular means, but by
the poetic unity of the composition. A reaction, however, soon took
place in favour of the popular form; and the Passion text of Brockes
(1712), which combined chorales and the words of the Gospel, slightly
altered, it is true, with the general structure of an oratorio,
immediately established itself as a model, and was set to music, within
six years of its publication, by musicians of the eminence of Keiser,
Telemann, Handel, and Mattheson. It forms also the basis of Bach’s
_S. John Passion_; but here the biblical narrative is followed with
entire fidelity,[59] and the master has proceeded with such independent
judgment that his work stands quite remote from the strange medley of
sacred and secular, old and new, with which his immediate predecessors
had to be contented. The music they wrote to it was indeed of great
individual beauty, but in their hands it never gained the symmetry
of an organic whole. It is Bach’s peculiar glory to have succeeded
in this endeavour where everyone else had failed. He adopted not the
forms of the Italian oratorio, but he absorbed its spirit. He blended
it in a manner of which no previous composer had ever suspected the
possibility, with the profound religiousness of the national chorale.
Above all, he created a recitative of his own, stripped of all that was
theatrical and entirely appropriate to the setting forth of the divine
narrative. In his Passion music he brings to absolute completeness the
form for which his conception of the church cantata had been through
long years the preparation. But musical power alone could not have
achieved what Bach achieved. It was his perfect sympathy with the
religious sense and emotional needs of the German people, his reverent
acceptance of all that was noble in the musical tradition of his race,
that enabled him to mould the ideal fulfilment of that which had been
imperfectly foreshadowed in the presentments of the passion, whether as
an act of divine service, a folk-play, or an oratorio.
The _Passions according to S. John_ and _S. Matthew_ lie before us
as the noblest monuments of Bach’s spirit. Often as they have been
compared, to the inevitable disadvantage of the former work, it needs
little study of them to shew that any comparison must be strained and
unnatural. Each is in truth incomparable, whether in relation to the
other, or to the rest of sacred music. The _S. John Passion_ is the
perfection of church-music; the _S. Matthew_ reaches the goal of all
sacred art, while its colossal dimensions take it almost, happily not
quite, out of the range of church performance. The _S. John Passion_
stands closer to the oratorio, as we may learn from the way in which
nearly every choral sentence, that is to say, whatever is spoken by
the disciples, the Jewish crowd, or the soldiers, is wrought into a
regular chorus, or at least several times repeated. This arrangement
certainly impairs the proportion of the different parts, since it
appears to lay a greater emphasis upon the voice of the many than upon
the single utterance of Christ or another. There is, however, always
a musical fitness in these elaborations, and nothing can be more
artistic than the way in which, for example, the sentence, _We have
a law, and by our law he ought to die_, is rehearsed as the subject
of a fugue, the most formal and (so to say) legal phrase that music
admits, and also the most expressive of the dispersed yet unanimous
speech of a multitude. It is part of the idea of Passion music to
break the continuity of the narrative in the Gospel by chorales and by
meditations, in the form of _arias_ or of developed recitative (called
_arioso_), dwelling upon the weighty moments of the story, after the
fashion of the chorus in Greek tragedy; and Bach has taken advantage
of the custom to insert in the _S. John Passion_ some of his most
melodious and most profoundly impressive creations. But, what is highly
significant of the spirit in which he planned his work, he never allows
these to interrupt the real unity of the narrative, almost invariably
prolonging the vocal cadence of the foregoing recitative by leaving it
on the dominant harmony. “The course of the action and the reflections
upon it seem thus to be linked in unbroken sequence, as if the one
sprang irresistibly to the other.”[60]
The entire work is begun and ended by great choruses. The opening
one was written and prefixed later, the original chorus having
been relegated to the close of the first part of the _S. Matthew
Passion_;[61] that at the end has also a similar inspiration to the
concluding chorus of the latter work, but its preservation in its
present form as well is a matter for which we cannot be too grateful,
whether we regard most the exquisite pathos of its melody or the
perfect flow of the several instruments, which, in their separate
progressions, give a personal, almost an individual, sentiment to the
composition. This sentiment lies at the root of the _Passion according
to S. John_, and makes a peculiar contrast to the universality which
is the note of that according to _S. Matthew_. As though to merge
this mood in a broader sympathy with his fellow-believers, Bach
has protracted the end so as to close the work by a chorale, the
distinctive symbol of congregational brotherhood.
If this be the motive of the unusual termination of the earlier
Passion, Bach has no need to explain his intention in the _Passion
according to S. Matthew_. In the first bars of the opening chorus the
long majestic tread of the basses is heard clearly to introduce us to
the thought of a drama of which the whole world is the spiritual scene,
all mankind, in their Representative, the actors. The never-ending
wail of the violins preludes to a tragedy which sums up all human
suffering. The cry has slowly risen to its height when the daughters
of Zion are shown to us, assembled to mourn, in the same piercing
measures, the Bridegroom as he passes on bearing his cross. A chorus
of believers, with wondering question, first interrupts their lament,
finally takes up their burthen and unites in the common sorrow.
Meantime the listening ear detects a third choir, of a single voice,
singing as from afar, and again strangely breaking off, the chorale,
_O Lamb of God_. The art of the work is stupendous; but more wonderful
still is the truthfulness with which it figures forth the immensity of
the drama to which it is the prologue.
Nevertheless it was far remote from Bach’s mind to present the Passion
in the guise of a drama; it would have been altogether foreign to the
essence of his genius. The Passion he will shew to us as a picture, or
rather as a series of pictures. He takes the text of S. Matthew without
gloss or change; choruses he leaves in the terse briefness of natural
utterance, repeating little or not at all. He seeks to give just
expression to the words by a thoughtful distribution of the speeches
between two complete choirs, each with its own organ and orchestra.
Above all he separates the words of Jesus from the rest of the recited
narrative by a different accompaniment, that of a string quartet,
within which setting he places them, with the purity of a crystal, as
within an aureole.[62] At certain moments of supreme dignity, the
simple recitative rises into the measured melody of the _arioso_, the
words, however, remaining without change. In this way the solemn act
of the last supper is carried to a sublime height, and inspired with a
supernal tenderness, wherein music reaches its noblest and most divine
ideal. Once only does the glory fade from around Christ’s words, and
that is at the last cry, _Eli, Eli, lama asabthani_. Here it is the
organ—the accompaniment of the human recitative—which alone sustains
the harmony. It is the finest thought in all Bach’s writing.
The additions to the text of the Gospel are of two sorts. First
there are the chorales, which appear in great frequency owing to the
numerous repetitions of a few melodies. One, the special Passion
chorale, _O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden_, recurs five times, with
different words, and the harmonies each time newly constructed. The
intention is evidently to fix the thought upon the prevailing tone of
the subject, in the same fashion, diversely applied, as that of the
modern _Leitmotiv_. Beside these chorales stand Picander’s verses which
are set in the form, not only of _arias_ or _ariosos_, but also of
recitative; and these, to throw the biblical recitative into greater
relief, have, for the most part, an accompaniment of wind instruments:
sometimes the single voice is blended, as in converse, with the
voices of the choir. Usually in the Passion music the company of the
faithful came simply as prologue and epilogue; here, on the contrary,
it attends throughout, and from one side of the church answers to
the voice of the Daughter of Zion on the other. Once and again the
multitudinous cry breaks in upon the pathos of her song; and it seems
as if no place were void of the all-pervading agony. At the end both
choirs join together in a hymn of tender watching addressed to the
Saviour as he lies sleeping in the tomb.
We should certainly fail to appreciate Bach’s place as a writer for
the church, if we left out of regard his _Masses_. That a composer so
peculiarly representative of Protestantism should have written such
works will only surprise those who are unfamiliar with the usage of
Lutheran worship. The conservatism of Leipzig, in particular, retained
many Catholic customs which the Protestant churches as a rule had
discarded, for instance, the surplices of minister and choir, and the
ringing of a bell during the eucharistal office. Latin motets, hymns,
and responses, were sung on high festivals; and the use of the Latin
_Magnificat_ furnished Bach with a theme for perhaps the splendidest of
his shorter church compositions.
The original performance of the _Magnificat_ throws an interesting
light on the manner in which the old tradition of the Latin singing
was fused with an entirely popular service. The famous work, notable
also as the first masterpiece which Bach produced at Leipzig, was not
performed on the Christmas of 1723, as we now hear it, as a continuous
whole. It was broken up by a string of Christmas songs, which, we
may rather say, served as a curiously wrought setting to enhance the
beauty of the gem it enclosed. At every pause the thanksgiving of the
virgin-mother was interrupted by verses of a well-loved German hymn,
_Vom Himmel hoch_, by the _Gloria in Excelsis_, and by little songs,
part in Latin, part German, of the most homely simplicity. Most likely
the church too kept the old German fashion, with its cradle and lullaby
and touching chorus of angels. Strangely out of place must the superb
canticle have sounded, but for that reverent spirit which breathes
through it and makes it a fulfilment of Protestant feeling, and a
contrast only by completion.
Besides these occasional performances, the first three divisions
of a complete Mass—the _Kyrie_, _Gloria_, and _Credo_—formed a
regular part of the service on Sundays and feast-days; the _Sanctus_
distinguished the three high festivals of the Lutheran kalendar: the
only element of the Mass which is not known to have been sung was the
_Agnus Dei_, and even of this we have evidence that it was performed in
the University Church (from a Mass of Haydn) later on in the eighteenth
century.
Accordingly there is nothing to hinder the supposition that Bach
employed his _Masses_ for production in the Leipzig churches.
Concerning two of the five he wrote[63] this is highly probable;
and a similar influence is suggested by the transcripts of several
Italian Masses, drawn from such different sources as Palestrina and
Lotti, which exist in Bach’s autograph and in that of his wife and
son. At the least the latter bear witness to the hold which this form
of church-music had taken upon his mind. But it was not until he had
traversed the whole field of Protestant music that he allowed himself
to rise to the conception of a work that should embrace the universal
faith of Christendom, whose voice should be persuasive to the hopes
and beliefs of Catholic and Protestant alike, the sonorous majesty
of the one growing intense in the human earnestness of the other.
To this Mass in B minor[64] Bach put all his strength, consecrated
every resource of inspiration and art, every possibility of voice and
instrument. While Catholic writers have treated the Mass music as
the gorgeous accompaniment of a mighty pomp, in which the outward,
dramatic, impressiveness stands in the foreground, Bach passes back
to the verities of which the sacred office is the symbol. Thus his
_Kyrie_ is not the mere opening of a stately pageant. From four
bars of majestic chorus, the orchestra go on at once to announce a
theme unsurpassed in the entire range of Bach’s music; each of the
five voices of the choir take it up in turn and weave together their
passionate, yet restrained cry for mercy. The human passion of the
_Kyrie eleison_ has its counterpart in the tender, almost personal
feeling of the _Christe eleison_, which is set as a duet to an
exquisitely melodious accompaniment of the violin, and in the closing
_Kyrie_ chorus, which, instead of being conceived in the usual way
as a petition to the Holy Spirit, resumes the tone of the first and
sums up the total supplication in a spirit now suggestive of the broad
treatment of the Catholic writers but soon betraying the hand of Bach
in its conciseness, its more nervous motion and acuter harmonies. The
same abandoning of traditional currents in order that he might go back
straight to the springs lying deep in the nature and experience of
the world, to which the office of the holy communion owes its life,
is equally manifest throughout the Mass. The _Gloria_ becomes again
the angel-song of the nativity. Bach throws himself at once into the
spirit in which he wrote the _Christmas Oratorio_; and of this great
work the later chorus is a sort of summary, to be used again for
performance at Christmas. But if his profound grasp of the reality
of that which he expressed is the supreme excellence of Bach’s _High
Mass_, no less striking in its way is the discrimination with which
he treats the different elements of the Creed. Intellectual dogmas
find an intellectual rendering, as in the curious places in which the
union of the divine nature in Christ is reflected by a canon, first in
the unison, then in the fourth below. But doctrines which are more
directly bound up with the soul of Christianity are recited with a
fulness of living sympathy, which feels the pathos of the human life of
Christ, pulses with unspeakable awe and an intensity almost terrific at
the rehearsal of his death, then springs up in most glorious rejoicing
at the resurrection. The declaration of his personal faith did not
obscure in Bach’s mind the fact that he was writing a work which should
hold true for _the one catholic, apostolic church_ of which existing
churches were all alike members. He returns to this thought openly in
the article of baptism, where the Gregorian intonation, _Confiteor
unum baptisma_, is pronounced, as a second subject, by the basses and
wrought with superb art into the texture of the fugue.
Words, however, can give but a very faint impression of this
masterpiece of universal Christendom; and daring with forced fingers
rude to touch its perfect outline, I leave inviolate the lyrical
tenderness of the _Agnus Dei_ and the yearning desire[65] of the _Dona
nobis pacem_, the restful consummation of the whole. Nor can I describe
the infinite fertility of the design, the happy frequency with which in
the _arie_ a single instrument, violin, flute, hautboy, or horn, is
made to enhance the delicacy of the human voice, or the splendour of
the grouping of the orchestra, equally noble in sonorous magnificence
and in chastened softness. Whether in its art or in its religion the
High Mass stands among the creations of Bach’s master-spirit, first
and alone, but for its sole equal, the _Passion according to Saint
Matthew_.