page_title: St John Passion structure
section_title: Versions
hierarchical_section_title: St John Passion structure / Structure / Versions
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Kolb, J.[oseph] M.[aximilian] (THIEME-BECKER Bd. 21, S. 224): Leipzig. Die Nicolaikirche. Stahlstich um 1850 nach L.[udwig] Rohbock (THIEME-BECKER Bd. 28, S. 542), Plattenrand 24,5 x 16,4 cm.English: St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig: Joseph Maximilian Kolb, steel engraving from an image by Ludwig Rohbock (1820-1883)
context_page_description: The structure of the St John Passion, BWV 245, a sacred oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, is "carefully designed with a great deal of musico-theological intent". Some main aspects of the structure are shown in tables below.
  The original Latin title Passio secundum Joannem translates to "Passion according to John".
  Bach's large choral composition in two parts on German text, written to be performed in a Lutheran service on Good Friday, is based on the Passion, as told in two chapters from the Gospel of John in the translation by Martin Luther, with two short interpolations from the Gospel of Matthew. During the vespers service, the two parts of the work were performed before and after the sermon. Part I covers the events until Peter's denial of Jesus, Part II concludes with the burial of Jesus. The Bible text is reflected in contemporary poetry and in chorales that often end a "scene" of the narration, similar to the way a chorale ends most Bach cantatas. An anonymous poet supplied a few texts himself, quoted from other Passion texts and inserted various stanzas of chorales by nine hymn writers. Bach led the first performance on 7 April 1724 in Leipzig's Nikolaikirche.
context_section_description: Bach led the first performance on 7 April 1724 at the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas) as part of a Vesper service for Good Friday. Part I was performed before the sermon, Part II after the sermon. Bach performed a second version on Good Friday a year later, 30 March 1725. Other versions were performed between 1728 and 1732 (version 3), and in 1749 (version 4). A final, fifth version, revised between 1739 and 1749, was never performed in Bach's lifetime.
  In version 2, Bach opened with a chorale fantasia on "O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß" (O man, bewail thy sins so great), the first stanza of a 1525 hymn by Sebald Heyden, a movement which he ultimately used to conclude Part I of his St Matthew Passion, returning to the previous chorus Herr, unser Herrscher in later versions of the St John Passion. He used three alternative arias, one of them with a chorale sung by the choir, and replaced the two closing movements, the chorus Ruht wohl and the chorale Ach Herr, laß dein lieb Engelein with the chorale fantasia on "Christe, du Lamm Gottes" (Christ, you Lamb of God), the German Agnus Dei, published in Braunschweig in 1528. Bach took this movement from his cantata Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn, BWV 23, which had been an audition piece for his post in Leipzig. Before, it had been part of his Weimarer Passion of 1717.
  In version 3, after Bach wrote his St Matthew Passion, he returned the opening chorus Herr, unser Herrscher and the final chorus Ruht wohl to their initial position, but removed the Gospel passages from Matthew and the closing chorale.
  In version 5 (never performed), possibly dating from as early 1739, Bach returned to the first version, but revised it thoroughly. He began a new score which covers 12 movements. As Christoph Wolff observes: "The fragmentary revised score constitutes an extensive stylistic overhaul with painstaking improvements to the part-writing and a partial restructuring of the instrumentation; particular attention was paid to the word-setting in the recitatives and the continuo accompaniment." In 1749, Bach performed the St John Passion once more, in an expanded and altered form from the 1724 version, in what would be his last performance of a Passion.
  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.
caption: Nikolaikirche, c. 1850
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