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St. John Passion is a musical piece by a renowned German composer called Johann Sebastian Bach. Most of Bach’s music conforms to the main style of composition during the Baroque period. St. John Passion BWV 245 underwent many modifications of text and musical form during presentations and several performances. The piece St. Passion translated from German Johaness-Passion. St. John Passion is a sacred oratorio masterpiece performed on Good Friday. St. John Passion has 36 bars and two transverse flutes, violins, viola, flute, and oboe with many more Orchestra instruments (Steinberg 44).
The background storyline of the piece captures the passion of Christ as narrated in the Gospel of John, a book of the New Testament. It’s an extravagant piece with profound expression of text and musical structure and is sometimes debated to be anti-Semitic. It spectacularly presents reflective arias and chorales in recitative manner that evokes desired mood. In this Bach’s St. John Passion there are scriptural texts and devotional text elements in arias and chorales that were cleverly paraphrased to be in harmony with the structure of the music. Clearly, he uses first-person narration to send Biblical textual messages, i.e., ‘It was I who betrayed….’ St. John Passion is written in a format that requires a band of soloists, a four-part choir, and several strings. It also ensembles bass continuo, two flutes, and instruments like lute. This paper will in-depth discuss how the several texts interrelate with music structure, harmony, mimesis, and form of the St. John Passion masterpiece. There are four parts with several arias that this paper will focus on. The text used in St. John Passion does not only interrelate with music in sending correct messages but also shows the harmony, form, and rubrics of the piece (Daw 89).
The first part contains almost one-third of the rubrics. The three arias tell about Apostle Peter betraying Jesus. “Von den Stricken meiner Sunden” which is translated in English to mean ‘from shackles of my vice’s bondage’ or better translated ‘From the tangle of my transgressions’ is a deep alto aria. It captures the mood and the starting keynote of G-minor. This allows the oboe to sound and capture the audience’s attention. The words are in harmony with the charming unison of the flute and soprano duet. There is a hark back stimulation in the words ‘ziehen’, ‘zerschmettert mich’ and ‘schieben’ which mean ‘to pull’, ‘to push’ and ‘destroy me’ respectively, when the torment of tenor aria and compelling vibrato of the bass aria is magnified by soprano chorale. These arias show the extravagance inline texts, tormenting expressions, and the amazing harmony created by the instruments. Thus these words interrelate both with meaning, mood and the instrumental essence in the music. ‘Ach, mein Sinn’ is the third aria that means ‘O my soul’.
In the last section of the part one, there is a moment of weeping. Here Peter ‘weeps’ about his realization of betrayal, as the text shows. The key of the music changes from G-minor to F-minor, what a transposition! The usage of hymn agrees to the words ‘Behold thy mother’ during Jesus’ death (Daw 172).
Part two begins with a hymn that is simpler than the one in the first part. This would require the details of the occasion in which the piece is conveniently played, like sermon in between the parts of the music. Most of the texts used here, imitate the body language of the instrumentalist, vocalist, and the audience present in the orchestra.
The music moves in a very violent and astonishing swiftness. There is a dialogue. Jesus and Pilate engage in a fast dialogue that suggests the tempo of the piece. The symmetrical structural design of the music captures the amazement of the audience. Several chorales matching the interjectory texts interrelate well with the structure and tempo developed in music. For example, ‘Ach grosser König’ which is translated as ‘Ah Great King’ together with ‘In meines Herzens Grunde’ meaning ‘within my heart’s recesses’ are the several texts that form the design. In between the texts there is a beautiful triptych. This is where my ears listened to profound combination of the crowd choruses. These choruses were separated by arias. Tenor aria related well with the text ‘Erwage’ which means ‘imagine’. I could imagine the conversation between Jesus and Pilate. The bass recitative aria, suggest the tone with the emphatic words ‘Betrachte, meine Seel’ show how Peter is begging for forgiveness ‘Consider my soul’.
The bass aria urges the audience to ‘Eilt, ihr angefocht’nen Seelen’ that is ‘Make haste, you beleaguered souls’. The tempo is still vibrant and extraordinary with flute and oboe. Then the two choruses make it a wonderful piece. From the text we meet the conversation of the crowd urging the Pilate to crucify Jesus. Here are the words vibrant sang in harmony of the piece, ‘Wir haben ein Gesetz’ as they shout that they have a law in the country and point at Pilate saying in the increased tempo ‘lässest du diesen los’ that is ‘If you let this one go’. The structure of the contour gives the music a sigmoid shape. This is because the upward movement of the notes escalated in the swift movement of the piece. In the first part, the low tones of the arias are well distributed with the texts which are in somewhat broken and unbroken lines (Daw 102).
These chromatic lines sang by the energetic crowd choruses have a texture that adds more contour aspect to the extraordinary design of St. John Passion. The strange interrelated triads are combined and transposed by the two keys F-minor and G-minor. The tempo suggesting the conversation, uses extraordinary longer and shorter key centers that seem to rotate through the 36 bars of the piece. Having various changes in accidentals, it allowed interrelation of the music rubrics with the text throughout the music piece of St. John Passion. St. John Passion has several triads that change from one bar to another. These triads in the 36 bars of St. John Passion, seem to relate hence they form harmony (Taruskin 54).
The ferocious thrust in the texture is an expansive interpolation mixed with fragrance of the sweet sonorities of the instruments involved in soothing tone and mood. The crowd sings the somber words ‘Betrachte, meine Seel’ which is urging Him to ‘consider, my Soul’. Hence, such fragrance of passion evoked as narrated in the Gospel of St. John give the piece an enharmonic rhythm articulation, voice projection, transposition, and tonality.
Evangelist recitative diction is efficient when the conservation ensues and Pilate points to the crowd as speaks loudly, ‘Sehet, welch ein Mensch!’ that is ‘Behold the man!’ These words are sung by the crowd. This makes the audience gasp in amazement at the integration of the meaning carried in the text and the music elements of St John Passion. These extraordinary musical gestures are transposed to a different key by a solo viola da gamba! The rapturous melody in the artistic male voice and mezzo-soprano picks up the now changing contour structure of the piece. These descending lines start to decrease in pitch dictated by the words in the piece which suggests meditation. After the momentous slow tempo, the music turns to fast allegro showing the victory of Judah’s hero crucified between two thieves in the words the crowd sings (Daw 144).
In this last part, Bach uses different tempos, to elicit the homophonic texture and polyphonic texture of St. John Passion. This is also felt in the soprano arias, Base arias, tenor arias, both chorales, and solo viola da gamba. The rhythmic pattern is clearly shown by the extraordinary change of keys. For example, the joining of the first part to the second is enhanced by the change from G-minor to F-minor. Thus, this brings the overall melody that is strictly evoked by the words in the St. John Passion piece of music. Hence it brings the intended meaning to the audience about the passion narrated in St. John’s gospel. The constant repetition of melodic ideas of the triads in short duration is wonderfully made by the orchestra instruments, like the flute, oboe, violins, and Lute.
Thus, the text used in St. John Passion does not only interrelate with music in sending a correct message but also shows the harmony, form, and rubrics of the piece.
Works Cited
Daw, Stephen. The Music of Johann Sebastian Bach: The Choral Works, 107, Canada: Associated University Presses, Inc, 1981. Print.
Steinberg, Michael. Choral Masterworks: A Listener’s Guide, 19. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.
Taruskin, Richard and Weiss, Piero. Music in the western world: A History in Documents, New York: Schirmer, 1984. Print.
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