The content of these posts is drawn extensively from Markus Rathey’s Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama, Liturgy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016) and Michael Marissen’s translations in Bach’s Oratorios: The Parallel German-English Texts with Annotations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
You can find a beautifully-filmed recording of the St. Matthew Passion by the Netherlands Bach Society here, including an English translation of the German text. NPR Classical also presents a “guided tour” through the St. Matthew Passion here.
“Erbarm dich unser, o Jesu!” “Have mercy on us, O Jesus!”
So ends the first chorale in Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. We know this chorale better as “Lamb of God, Pure and Holy” (LSB 434), and at Immanuel, we sing this every Good Friday. Like modern day Lutherans, Bach’s congregation at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany considered this a hymn in their repertoire. Indeed, Bach draws on the people’s knowledge of chorales to show a communal response to Christ’s suffering in the St. Matthew Passion.
The word “passion” in this case refers to its Latin root pati, meaing “suffering”. In the Christian Church, we follow the tradition of calling the period of Christ’s suffering and death his “Passion”. In music, a passion is, according to The Harvard Dictionary of Music, “a musical setting of Jesus’ sufferings and death as related by one of the four Evangelists”. Bach, then, is drawing on the account of Jesus’ suffering and death as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew.
Bach’s St. Matthew Passion was first performed at St. Thomas Church at the Good Friday vespers service on April 11, 1727. It is a monumental piece with parts for two choirs, soloists, and orchestra. Like the Lutheran Church today, St. Thomas Church practiced certain types of fasting during Lent. Just as we do not sing certain parts of the liturgy until Easter, so the congregation in Leipzig practiced musical fasting. For the 40 days of Lent, Bach’s church forbade the use of instruments and voices together; instead, the congregation sang simple hymns. Normally, the liturgy of the church service was filled with music: cantatas before the sermon and music during the distribution of the Lord’s Supper. When the music was silenced for Lent, then, the musical fast reminded the people of this solemn time of mediation and repentance—a tradition we continue today. In Bach’s time, even private and public music-making was banned during Lent. Imagine, then, the atmosphere of St. Thomas in Leipzig as the first instruments heard in months proclaimed their introduction to the St. Matthew Passion and the full chorus declares the point of the entire story: the Bridegroom, Christ, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The passion gave the congregation ample opportunity to reflect on Christ’s sufferings and death. In fact, the entire Good Friday service provided the people of Leipzig a three-fold way to reflect on Christ’s Passion. Beginning at 1:45 pm on the afternoon of Good Friday, the people sang a hymn poetically detailing the seven last words of Christ on the cross. Then followed the first part of St. Matthew Passion after which the congregation sang another hymn followed by an hour-long sermon. After the sermon, the second part of the passion was performed followed by a Latin choral piece, prayers, and a closing hymn. As Markus Rathey writes, “The congregation that attended the first performances of the St Matthew Passion during Bach’s lifetime had the opportunity to reflect on the sufferings of Christ in a multitude of ways: by singing Jesus’ last words, by listening to Bach’s setting, and by paying attention to the sermon” (110).
The passion was meant to be performed in the context of a church service, a service in which the people had a part in proclaiming God’s Word. The congregational hymns gave the people a chance to reflect on Christ’s saving work. This is why we continue to sing hymns in our services almost 300 years later. As we will see in later posts, Bach included parts for the people in his St. Matthew Passion—not parts for them to perform, but chorales, or hymns, to recognize as their own and to view as their communal response to Christ’s suffering and death.
Reading questions:
1. What is a musical passion?
2. Which day of the Church Year was Bach’s passion written for?
3. Which Gospel is this account of the Passion from?
4. What was the name of the church Bach was at in which this passion was first performed?
5. What was banned in Leipzig during the 40 days of Lent? Was this banned in the Church only?
6. According to Markus Rathey, what were the three ways in which the congregation would reflect on Jesus’ suffering and death during the service?
7. How did the people participate in the church service?
8. Could you have sat through this long of a church service?