Bach’s St. John Passion, BWV 245, occupies a pivotal place at the beginning of his Leipzig career. The work was first performed on Good Friday, 7 April 1724, less than a year after Bach assumed the post of Thomaskantor. Passion music had not been performed in the city the previous year due the death of Bach’s predecessor, Johann Kuhnau, so the new cantor’s first Passion setting marked the resumption of this important liturgical tradition. At the time of its premiere, the St. John Passion was the largest-scale concerted Passion yet heard in Leipzig’s principal churches, as well as Bach’s first large-scale vocal composition for church services, although he approached the task with substantial experience composing church cantatas during his Weimar period and his first 10 months in Leipzig.

The Passion was performed in the context of the Good Friday Vespers service, and it was the first time in many weeks when concerted music was performed in church. Traditionally, Leipzig banned elaborate music in church during the Lent season, a practice called “tempus clausum”. This allowed Bach time to prepare for the SJP premiere, as well as made the performance stand out. The work was ultimately performed in the Nikolaikirche rather than the Thomaskirche, apparently after Bach initially assumed the opposite. This misunderstanding caused some friction with the Leipzig authorities, but Bach could get out of it the budget to repair of a harpsichord in Nikolaikirche for the performance, which had been long neglected.

Leipzig’s conservative liturgical expectations shaped the textual structure of the Passion. Unlike the popular Brockes-style Passion oratorios circulating elsewhere in Germany, which paraphrased the Gospel narrative in poetic form, Leipzig required the Passion story itself to be presented directly from the biblical text. Bach therefore set the narrative of the Gospel of John (chapters 18 and 19) verbatim in the Evangelist’s recitatives. For dramatic effect, however, two brief passages from the Gospel of Matthew were incorporated: Peter’s bitter weeping following his denial of Christ (Matthew 26: 75) and the account of the earthquake after Jesus’ death (Matthew 27: 51–52). An unknown librettist (possible Bach himself) surrounded the biblical narrative with reflective poetic recitatives and arias, as well as chorales drawn from the Lutheran hymn tradition. The poetic material was sourced from writers such as Christian Weise (1642-1708) and Christian Heinrich Postel (1658-1705) and also incorporated adapted passages from Barthold Heinrich Brockes’ (1680-1747) influential Passion poetry. The libretto is divided into two parts: Part I (covering Judas’ betrayal, Jesus’ arrest, and Peter’s denial) intended for before the sermon, and the longer Part II (interrogation and scourging, condemnation and crucifixion, Jesus’ death and burial) for after it.

Unlike the later St. Matthew Passion, which eventually stabilized into a form deemed “definitive” by Bach, the SJP remained a work in flux. After the initial presentation in 1724, he revised it repeatedly, with significant changes incorporated for a repeat performance in 1725. In later years (1730’s and 40’s) Bach largely reverted back to the original version while implementing some other, less substantial, changes. As a result, the Passion survives in several different versions rather than a single definitive one, reflecting Bach’s continued engagement with the work throughout his career.

The performing forces of the St. John Passion are substantial but still more compact than those of the later St. Matthew Passion. The narrative is borne above all by the Evangelist (tenor), whose recitatives drive the action, and by the bass singing the role of Jesus. Other soloists take the smaller biblical roles (a maid, a servant, Peter, Pilate) and the meditative arias. The choir serves a double function: it sings the chorales that frame the drama in the voice of the community, and it also delivers the sharp and energetic “turba” (“crowd”) choruses, representing the group of people persecuting Jesus: soldiers, priests, their servants, and the assembled multitude.

In addition to the customary strings and continuo, the orchestra includes flutes, oboes (doubling with oboes d’amore and oboes da caccia), a pair of violas d’amore, and a viola da gamba. This rich instrumental palette plays an important rhetorical role particularly in the poetic segments, shaping the emotional character of each meditation and contributing significantly to the Passion’s dramatic impact.

In the SJP, Bach departs from the usual practice in his cantatas (and later in the St. Matthew Passion) of providing Jesus with a “musical halo” by way of accompanying his recitatives with strings. Instead, Jesus’ recitatives are “secco”, i.e. accompanied by the continuo group alone, just like those for the other soloists. Commentators and scholars usually explain this striking difference by the austere and dramatically direct presentation of Christ in John’s Gospel, in which his majesty is projected by the force of the narrative itself.

In the next six articles we’ll examine each scene in the SJP in more detail, following the original 1724 version. As a general observation, it’s worth mentioning that the poetic interpolations (arias and ariosos) typically follow moments of dramatic crisis in the story (such as Peter’s denial, the mockery of Christ, the approach to Golgotha, and the death of Jesus), serving as theological reflections on the events just narrated. Chorales give voice to the collective response of the community and punctuate the narrative with moments of devotion. Compared with the St. Matthew Passion, the poetic commentary is utilized more sparingly, allowing longer stretches of uninterrupted Gospel narration and contributing to the work’s distinctive dramatic momentum.

Listeners today often notice the Gospel of John’s repeated references to “the Jews” in the Passion narrative, language that can sound troubling in light of the long and painful history of Christian hostility toward Jewish communities. Bach inherited this wording directly from the biblical text he was setting, and the Passion reflects the theological language and assumptions of its time. Heard today, the work invites historical awareness and sensitivity, asking us to recognize both the difficult legacy of these texts and the profound spiritual and musical vision that Bach brought to the Passion story.