St Mark Passion (Bach)
Encyclopedia
The St Mark Passion BWV
247, is a lost Passion setting by Johann Sebastian Bach
, first performed in Leipzig on Good Friday
, 23 March 1731 and again on Good Friday 1744 in a revised version. Though Bach's music is lost, the libretto by Picander
is still extant, and from this, the work can to some degree be reconstructed.
. This leaves only a couple of arias missing, which are taken from other Bach works when reconstructions are attempted. However, since Bach's recitative
is lost, most reconstructions use the recitatives composed for a Markus-Passion by Reinhard Keiser
, a work which Bach himself performed on at least two occasions, which gives a certain authenticity to things, although it could be viewed as somewhat disrespectful to Keiser's work. However, Keiser's setting starts slightly later than Bach's, which requires a small amount of composition on the part of the reconstructor.
Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Mark Passion was first performed in Leipzig on Good Friday
, 23 March 1731. Written under the pseudonym Picander
, Christian Friedrich Henrici's libretto survives in a 1732 poetry collection. The Markus-Passion is a modest setting, adding to Mark
chapters 14 and 15 only eight free verse arias and 16 hymn stanzas. The chorale
s assume greater weight due to their higher proportional use: 16 of the 46 movements are chorales in the St Mark Passion, whereas only 13 of 68 are chorales in the St Matthew Passion. Five of the Markus-Passion texts appear to match the 1727 Trauer Ode, other likely parodies include BWV 54 and BWV 120a
. However, no musical material remains for the Gospel texts or turba
choruses. Further, we have no knowledge of the keys and orchestration which Bach used. While the libretto specifies which chorale melodies were used, Bach's harmonizations remain uncertain.
Diethard Hellmann
completed a reconstruction in 1964 based on parodies and chorale harmonization choices only. A 1976 edition includes additional choruses to be used with a spoken delivery of the gospel text. Carus-Verlag published Hellmann's work with newly composed recitatives and arias by Johannes Koch in 1999. The orchestration for the work matches that of BWV 198.
In 1998 Rudolf Kelber
reconstructed the St. Mark Passion as a pasticcio
: He completed Bach's fragments using arias from cantatas by Bach, recitatives by Keiser, motives by Telemann and own additions.
In 1999, Ton Koopman
presented a reconstruction that does not utilize BWV 198, but instead draws on Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe, BWV 25 (opening chorus) and Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, BWV 179
(turba choruses) and his own freely composed recitatives.
In 2010, Alexander Ferdinand Grychtolik
made a first edition of the late version of the St. Mark Passion (from 1744) as a stylistically consistent reconstruction, published by Edition Peters
. The text of this unknown later version was discovered 2009 in Saint Petersburg
. In this version, Bach added two arias and he made small changes in Picander's text.
and Andreas Glöckner, in the Frauenkirche Dresden with the augmented ensemble amarcord
and the Kölner Akademie was conducted by Michael Alexander Willens. The lost recitatives were replaced by recitation.
BWV
The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis is the numbering system identifying compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. The prefix BWV, followed by the work's number, is the shorthand identification for Bach's compositions...
247, is a lost Passion setting by Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, first performed in Leipzig on Good Friday
Good Friday
Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...
, 23 March 1731 and again on Good Friday 1744 in a revised version. Though Bach's music is lost, the libretto by Picander
Picander
Picander was the pseudonym of Christian Friedrich Henrici , a German poet and librettist for many of Johann Sebastian Bach's Leipzig cantatas...
is still extant, and from this, the work can to some degree be reconstructed.
History
Unlike Bach's earlier existing passions (St John Passion and St Matthew Passion), the Markus-Passion is probably a parody — it recycles movements from other pre-existing works. The St Mark Passion seems to reuse virtually the whole of the Trauer Ode Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahl, BWV 198, along with the two arias from Widerstehe doch der Sünde, BWV 54. In addition, two choruses from the St Mark Passion were reused in the Christmas OratorioChristmas Oratorio
The Christmas Oratorio BWV 248, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. It was written for the Christmas season of 1734 incorporating music from earlier compositions, including three secular cantatas written during 1733 and 1734 and a...
. This leaves only a couple of arias missing, which are taken from other Bach works when reconstructions are attempted. However, since Bach's recitative
Recitative
Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
is lost, most reconstructions use the recitatives composed for a Markus-Passion by Reinhard Keiser
Reinhard Keiser
Reinhard Keiser was a popular German opera composer based in Hamburg. He wrote over a hundred operas, and in 1745 Johann Adolph Scheibe considered him an equal to Johann Kuhnau, George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann , but his work was largely forgotten for many...
, a work which Bach himself performed on at least two occasions, which gives a certain authenticity to things, although it could be viewed as somewhat disrespectful to Keiser's work. However, Keiser's setting starts slightly later than Bach's, which requires a small amount of composition on the part of the reconstructor.
Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Mark Passion was first performed in Leipzig on Good Friday
Good Friday
Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...
, 23 March 1731. Written under the pseudonym Picander
Picander
Picander was the pseudonym of Christian Friedrich Henrici , a German poet and librettist for many of Johann Sebastian Bach's Leipzig cantatas...
, Christian Friedrich Henrici's libretto survives in a 1732 poetry collection. The Markus-Passion is a modest setting, adding to Mark
Mark the Evangelist
Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....
chapters 14 and 15 only eight free verse arias and 16 hymn stanzas. The chorale
Chorale
A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....
s assume greater weight due to their higher proportional use: 16 of the 46 movements are chorales in the St Mark Passion, whereas only 13 of 68 are chorales in the St Matthew Passion. Five of the Markus-Passion texts appear to match the 1727 Trauer Ode, other likely parodies include BWV 54 and BWV 120a
Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille, BWV 120
Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille , BWV 120, is a sacred cantata written by the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach for the occasion of Ratswahl, the inauguration of a new town council of Leipzig in a church service...
. However, no musical material remains for the Gospel texts or turba
Turba
' literally means crowd in Latin. It may refer more specifically to any text in the biblical Passion of Jesus which is spoken by any group of people, including the disciples, the Jews, or the soldiers...
choruses. Further, we have no knowledge of the keys and orchestration which Bach used. While the libretto specifies which chorale melodies were used, Bach's harmonizations remain uncertain.
Reconstructions
Several reconstructions exist. Andor Gomme edited a 1997 reconstruction published by Bärenreiter that utilizes BWV 198 and choruses from BWV 204, 216, 120a, and 54. The recitatives and turba choruses are drawn from Reinhard Keiser's (1674–1739) St. Mark Passion, which Bach himself adapted for use in Weimar in 1713.Diethard Hellmann
Diethard Hellmann
Diethard Hellmann was a German Kantor and an academic in Leipzig, Mainz and Munich.-Professional career:...
completed a reconstruction in 1964 based on parodies and chorale harmonization choices only. A 1976 edition includes additional choruses to be used with a spoken delivery of the gospel text. Carus-Verlag published Hellmann's work with newly composed recitatives and arias by Johannes Koch in 1999. The orchestration for the work matches that of BWV 198.
In 1998 Rudolf Kelber
Rudolf Kelber
Rudolf Kelber is a German organist, harpsichordist, conductor and church musician.- Biography :Rudolf Kelber began his musical education at high school in Nuremberg State Conservatory and received instruction in piano, organ, cello and music theory...
reconstructed the St. Mark Passion as a pasticcio
Pasticcio
In music, a pasticcio or pastiche is an opera or other musical work composed of works by different composers who may or may not have been working together, or an adaptation or localization of an existing work that is loose, unauthorized, or inauthentic.-Etymology:The term is first attested in the...
: He completed Bach's fragments using arias from cantatas by Bach, recitatives by Keiser, motives by Telemann and own additions.
In 1999, Ton Koopman
Ton Koopman
Ton Koopman is a conductor, organist and harpsichordist.Koopman had a "classical education" and then studied the organ , harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam...
presented a reconstruction that does not utilize BWV 198, but instead draws on Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe, BWV 25 (opening chorus) and Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, BWV 179
Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, BWV 179
Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei , BWV 179, is a church cantata written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1723 in Leipzig for the eleventh Sunday after Trinity, first performed on 8 August 1723.-History and words:Bach wrote the cantata in his first year in Leipzig, which he had...
(turba choruses) and his own freely composed recitatives.
In 2010, Alexander Ferdinand Grychtolik
Alexander Ferdinand Grychtolik
Alexander Ferdinand Grychtolik is a German harpsichordist, improviser, musicologist and academic.-Professional career:...
made a first edition of the late version of the St. Mark Passion (from 1744) as a stylistically consistent reconstruction, published by Edition Peters
Edition Peters
Edition Peters, also known as C.F.Peters Musikverlag, is a German music publishing house, founded in Leipzig in 1800.From the 1860s it was largely run by members the Hinrichsen family, who were Jewish. The company was confiscated by the Nazis and administered by the "Trustee of Jewish Property"....
. The text of this unknown later version was discovered 2009 in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. In this version, Bach added two arias and he made small changes in Picander's text.
Recordings
In 2009 a performance and live recording of the reconstructed version by Diethard HellmannDiethard Hellmann
Diethard Hellmann was a German Kantor and an academic in Leipzig, Mainz and Munich.-Professional career:...
and Andreas Glöckner, in the Frauenkirche Dresden with the augmented ensemble amarcord
Ensemble amarcord
The ensemble amarcord is a German male classical vocal ensemble based in Leipzig, founded in 1992 by five former members of the Thomanerchor. Their focus is Medieval music, Renaissance music and the collaboration with contemporary composers.- Singers :...
and the Kölner Akademie was conducted by Michael Alexander Willens. The lost recitatives were replaced by recitation.
Further reading
- BärenreiterBärenreiterBärenreiter is a German classical music publishing house based in Kassel. The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still maintains headquarters; it also has offices in Basel, London, New York and Prague...
. “St. Mark Passion BWV 247.” www.baerenreiter.com - Butt, JohnJohn A ButtJohn A Butt is an orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar who has held the Gardiner Chair of Music at the University of Glasgow since 2001, and has led the Dunedin Consort, a professional vocal ensemble centered in Edinburgh, since 2003.-Biography:John Butt was born...
. “Reconstructing Bach.” Early Music. November 1998, 673-675. - Carus-Verlag. “Markuspassion.” www.carus-verlag.com
- Koopman, Ton. “Research.” www.tonkoopman.nl
- Neumann, WernerWerner NeumannWerner Neumann was a German musicologist. He founded the Bach-Archiv Leipzig on 20 November 1950 and was a principal editor of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the second edition of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.- Professional career :Neumann studied at the Conservatory of Leipzig from 1928 to...
. Sämtliche von Johann Sebastian Bach vertonte Texte. Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1974. - Melamed, Daniel R. Hearing Bach’s Passions. “Parody and Reconstruction: the Saint Mark Passion BWV 247.” New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Terry, Charles SanfordCharles Sanford Terry (historian)Charles Sanford Terry was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.-Career:...
. Bach: The Cantatas and Oratorios, the Passions, the Magnificat, Lutheran Masses, and Motets. Five volumes in one. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1972. - Theill, Gustav Adolf. Die Markuspassion von Joh. Seb. Bach (BWV 247). Steinfeld : Salvator, 1978.
External links
- Markus-Passion BWV 247 on bach-cantatas.com