 Wolff writes: "Bach experimented with the St John Passion as he did with no other large-scale composition", possible by the work's structure with the Gospel text as its backbone and interspersed features that could be exchanged. Wolff concludes: " the work accompanied Bach right from his first year as Kantor of St Thomas's to the penultimate year of his life and thus, for that reason alone, how close it must have been to his heart.
