A Singer’s Guide to Bach’s St John Passion
A Singer’s Guide to Bach’s St John Passion
I have been booked to sing Christus in a performance of Bach’s Johannes-Passion in March, at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire, so I thought I would take a look here at this work which has been part of my life for over 40 years. My first appearance in this earth-shattering work was when still a student at the Guildhall School of Music in the late 1970s: an invitation to sing with the Leicestershire Chorale in the lovely St Mary’s Church in Melton Mowbray, home of the pork pie and stilton cheese! I sang Christus and, I think, the arias, all at modern pitch, which was very much the norm then. Bach has always been difficult for me at modern pitch, A440Hz, as his writing for low voice solo sits consistently high for a bass. I much prefer ‘Baroque Pitch’, which, at A415Hz is almost exactly a semitone lower. The difference between singing a whole bunch of D flats and E flats rather than D and E natural is huge, and for most of Bach’s solo writing, the difference for me between singing it or leaving it to a baritone. The differential is almost as big for the tenor. I remember the soloist that day nearly 50 years ago in Melton nearly expiring when asked to sing the Da capo aria, ‘Erwäge’.
Fortunately, the Christus in the John Passion is less challenging, and that’s why I am going to Ampleforth to sing it.
In the late 1980s and early 90s, I was asked to join a German ensemble, Ensemble Contrapunctus, based in Wiesbaden, for a series of performances all over Germany and Switzerland of the Johannes-Passion. This was a very early manifestation of the theory advanced by Joshua Rifkin in 1981 that Bach’s choral music was intended for very small groups of performers. The four vocal parts were sung by eight solo voices, with solos shared out among the eight, and with minimal instrumental players. There was no separate chorus, and so the whole ensemble was light and airy, allowing for extraordinarily fast speeds if desired, sung by individual soloists. Contrapunctus performed at A415, so it was all tremendously exciting, both for performers and audiences. I was the only non-German in the group and was delighted to take part in a novel and cutting-edge project. It was quite hard work to learn the choruses, as I had always stood in front previously, letting other people sing all those little black notes, but there was something enormously thrilling about taking responsibility for the dramatic choral lines that Bach wrote. The other bass, Stephan Schreckenberger, and I were continually being told to sing quieter, which we did, occasionally!
I reckon I got the better bargain with Contrapunctus as I sang the choruses and Christus, while Stephan sang the choruses, all the arias, and the roles of Peter and Pilate.
I returned to the St John occasionally over the years, nearly always as Christus, but never sang it as much as I would have liked. I did sing Christus in Arvo Pärt’s Latin version, ‘Passio’, written in 1982, many times all over the world with the Hilliard Ensemble, and recorded an eight voice version of Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Dunedin Consort in 2007. Although the Passions are not stage works, and in my opinion, the fad recently for staging both Passions and the Messiah as quasi operas is monstrous, there is no doubt that someone with a theatrical presence and a commanding voice can be very moving as Christus, and I regret that I was booked so rarely in that role.
Perhaps it might be helpful here to explain why the role of Jesus in the Passions is always referred to as Christus? This is a German word, derived directly from the Latin for Christ, itself adopted from the Greek Christos, meaning the anointed one. Therefore Jesus Christ is Jesus the Anointed One, and since Bach was writing in German and using the relatively recent Lutheran Bible, Christus has become the accepted word for the role in the Passions, both in German and English. At the very beginning of the St John Passion, the crowd are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, to have him arrested. Christus asks: “Whom do ye seek? to which the crowd replies: “Jesus of Nazareth”. He replies: “I am he.” At this stage, he is simply a human figure, a person from a small town, but of course, everyone listening to the Passion knows that he is Christus, the Anointed One, and that what is to come is his and their story.
Bach wrote the Johannes-Passion for Good Friday 1724, in his first year as Director of Church Music in Leipzig. The Passion was supposed to be sung in the Thomaskirche but for various reasons, it was first performed in a Good Friday Vespers service at the Nikolaikirche. The congregation must have had little idea that they were present at history in the making, but such was the ingenuity of the composer that that same congregation took part in that extraordinary event themselves, as Bach included several Lutheran chorales in the fabric of the work, which they would have sung along with the choir.
It would appear that Bach spent the remaining years of his life finessing the St John, but the end result seems to be that he was more or less satisfied with the format he had started with. The work is in two parts, probably originally with a sermon in the middle, and is book-ended by two monumental choruses, ending with a Chorale. The narrative is in continuo form, with the characters singing with cello and harpsichord accompaniment alone. Various small characters step forward to make statements or ask questions, while the major players, Christus, Peter and Pilate feature strongly. The evangelist, St John, is a tenor, with a big range and strong emotional commitment, and there are many dramatic choruses which punctuate the narrative. Throughout the whole piece, solo arias comment on what is happening in the story, and these arias contain the most expressive music in the work. Some are very beautiful, some dramatic and all pretty difficult! Quite often a solo instrument is added to the texture, allowing the solo singer to perform along with that instrument in duet. It is a magnificent concept on the part of the composer, and although much shorter and less elaborate than the St Matthew Passion, the St John has a homogeneity that is very pleasing both for the performers and the audience/congregation.
We are about to come into the season for the Passions as we approach Easter, and there will be all sorts of performances across Scotland, so here are some of the highlights in the St John to listen for.
The first great chorus, for four part choir and orchestra, ‘Herr, unser Herrscher’, is a grand statement of all that will be achieved through the passion, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, building up through a throbbing, relentless polyphony to a magnificent climax, releasing some tension in the B section, and growing again in the repeat of the A section It’s a dramatic statement of intent on the part of the composer, and we are left in no doubt that this is a major work. It’s interesting that there is no brass section in the orchestra, and no percussion, with woodwind being restricted to two flutes and two oboes. Occasional use of oboe da caccia, lute, viola d’amore and viola di gamba add a deliberately old fashioned sound to the ensemble.
The narrative starts with the crowd gathering to force Jesus’s arrest and capture, although the betrayal by Judas, which is a central part of the St Matthew Passion, is only briefly referred to. Much is made of Peter’s denial, and throughout the work, the audience is continually reminded of the fulfilling of prophesies and older scriptures, of all of which Jesus is aware, and indeed is determined to reveal. He speaks clearly and calmly, despite the obvious threat, often in apocalyptic words and expressions. The sense of inevitability is palpable from the beginning. The process of arrest and the sending up of Jesus through the ranks of the Jewish priesthood is commented on in chorales and in solo arias for alto, soprano and tenor. Peter’s denial and the crowing of the cock come at the climax of the first part, as the evangelist mellifluously describes the disciple’s weeping. The tenor’s aria and the chorale which ends the first part, invite the listener, and the congregation, to reflect on Peter’s denial and his bitter regret.
The second part begins with a chorale, and immediately we are involved in the trial of Jesus, under the auspices of Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judaea. This historical figure, one of the very few in the narrative of whom there is clear evidence in Jerusalem at the time, has been subject to all sorts of legends and half truths. The evangelist makes it quite clear that Pilate didn’t want to crucify Jesus but was forced into giving the order by the screaming of the local crowd. Indeed, the crowd scenes in the St John are characterised by an unthinking, violent and bigoted antagonism to Jesus, and represent a whole-hearted anti-Semitic mob, of which the Nazis would have been proud. Sadly, it tells us that mid-18th century Leipzig was no different to most of central Europe at the time!
Pilate’s legacy has always enthralled me, as he is one of the most famous people in history, but with a story which is basically unknown. His name is spoken daily wherever the Catholic Creed is said - ‘suffered under Pontius Pilate’! One of my favourite legends is that he was born in the little hamlet of Fortingall in Perthshire, beyond both the Antonine and Hadrian’s Wall, where there is apparently one of the oldest trees in Europe, a yew tree 5,000 years old, and several prehistoric standing stones nearby. The ley lines must have been buzzing!
Pilate, in the narrative of the Passion, tries to persuade the avenging hordes that Jesus seems to have done nothing bad, but the crowd are having none of it. He offers to release Jesus instead of a murderer called Barrabas, but the Jews would rather have a murderer released. The irony of course is that Jesus was as Jewish as the screaming crowd, but they had made their minds up. In the midst of all this, Bach allows a moment of respite as the bass soloist sings a truly beautiful short arioso, ‘Betrachte, meine Seel’, accompanied by two viola d’amores and two violins, a lute and continuo, in which we, the true believers, are invited to ponder how the agonies of Christ can result in our redemption, and the sprinkling of his blood can somehow purify us. It’s a gruesome text but sublime music. This is followed by the tenor aria, ‘Erwäge, wie sein blutgefärbter Rücken’, a killer piece for the soloist, in A-B-A form, which, in its depiction of Jesus’s blood-striped back after his scourging, is hard to listen to as well as hard to sing. That we, the believers, are meant to see in this horrible sight a rainbow, a vision of beauty, signifying God’s Grace, is beyond me, but again ‘different times, different attitudes!’
We are now in the middle of the worst part of the narrative, as all Pilate’s attempts to free Jesus are rebutted by the crowd, in a succession of choruses which become more and more offensive and harsh. He tries to remind them that this is their king, but they say they have no king but Caesar.
At this point, Pilate gives up, and Jesus is led away to be crucified, described in a bass aria with choral interjections, of extreme difficulty - ‘Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen’ (Hurry, you besieged souls).
One more prophesy has to be fulfilled: in Psalms 22:18, it was written that “they divide my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture.” Wiser minds than mine will be able to explain the significance, but this incident, involving the soldiers employed for the crucifixion, clearly inspired Bach to write a brilliant fugue for four part choir, which absolutely relieves the tension building up through the trial. It dispels the gloom and is fantastic fun to sing. I remember in my Contrapunctus days how we tried to convince the conductor to go faster every evening, just to show off really!
After the letting off of steam, we are plunged back into the story, and here Christus, who has not sung for ages, and only has three or four broken words left to utter, has to use all his interpretative skills to draw the audience/congregation into the final tragedy. Bach is extremely concise here, as Christ’s last words are spoken from the cross. He is thirsty, but the soldiers only offer him vinegar, and he says: ‘es ist vollbracht’ - it is fulfilled. The direct translation is ‘it is finished’ or ‘it is consummated’, but the heightened sense of fulfilment or accomplishment seems more apposite. Unlike in the St Matthew Passion, with its great cry of “My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?”, the St John is much more minimal, a last whisper rather than a loud exclamation. It leads directly into one of Bach’s very finest arias, for Alto, ‘Es ist vollbracht’, with the voice in tandem with the melancholy viola da gamba.
That aria is followed by the short statement from the Evangelist - ‘and he bowed his head and passed away’. Very simple, very direct, very sad.
A meditation for bass and chorus in chorale asks whether Christ’s example on the cross can redeem mankind, clearly inviting the answer – Yes. The bass voice and the mellowness of the cello obbligato, set alongside the solemn strains of a Lutheran chorale, lulls the listener into a heady feeling of hope, only to be dramatically interrupted by the Evangelist’s description of the earth’s reaction to Christ’s death, with the veil of the temple rent in twain and earthquakes and landslides combining to open up the graves of God’s saints. It’s an apocalyptic moment, which soon dies down to allow the tenor soloist to calm the mood and for the soprano soloist to mourn the death of Jesus in an impassioned aria.
The need to round things off can make the Burial sequence something of a low point, as all the various scriptures had to be fulfilled, and some aspects involving breaking legs and plunging spears into the body are frankly distasteful, but fortunately Bach was able to apply his genius to the closing section, ending the story in a glorious chorus, ‘Ruht wohl’, and a chorale promising the joy of resurrection for all believers.
The St John Passion is simply one of the greatest works of artistic genius ever written, and it is our privilege as performers to keep the inspired creation of Johann Sebastian Bach fresh and relevant to modern audiences. It’s not a piece of theatre, and has no need of staging, but a good performance needs a sense of drama in the handling of the story. Some of the sentiment is of its time, and some of the narrative sections are less important for a contemporary listener, but if you allow yourself to be immersed in the story and the meditations on the story that Bach wove into the whole piece, it can take you to a place of true knowledge and peace, far removed from the hurly burly of the modern world. That must be a good thing!
