Bach's masterpiece first premiered on Good Friday in 1724. His composition is an unparalleled appeal for more humanity.A 33-year-old man is accused of a crime. He is arrested, tortured and dies on a cross. His fellow human beings, including his mother, are forced to watch his torture, unable to do anything. The darkest chapter in the history of Christianity is described personally and vividly by a witness, the evangelist John, a close friend of the victim.

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This is how one could summarize the theme of the St. John Passion. Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, which alongside Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, is considered by many to be one of the greatest works of European music.

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"The timeless themes that make this work so topical and universal," says Michael Maul, Bach researcher and director of the Leipzig Bach Festival. "Love and compassion. Dealing with betrayal, with grief. You don't have to be a devout Christian or even a Lutheran to feel that."

Easter 300 years ago

Good Friday, April 7, 1724. It was the first Easter the 39-year-old composer Johann Sebastian Bach spent in Leipzig. Just a year earlier, he had moved to the Saxon trade fair city with his second wife Anna Magdalena and their four children from his first marriage. He had taken up the position of "Thomaskantor" — and was the director of the 54 choirboys of St. Thomas Church. It was a challenging job that was not always rewarding.

For the people of Leipzig, Bach, who was known as the ex-chapel master of Köthen, was by no means their first choice: "If you can't get one of the best, there's nothing left to do but turn to someone in the middle," was a disappointed comment from the town hall.

But Bach was ambitious and was determined to prove himself by presenting a new composition during the Holy Week of Easter, the central musical event of the church year. This Good Friday music was played after the "tempus clausum," a period of musical abstinence lasting throughout the period of Lent. It was the only time of the year when the Thomaskantor could draw on all of the city's musical forces, which were otherwise spread across Leipzig's four main churches.

Reactions remain mysterious

But despite the attention to detail that has been practiced throughout the centuries in Leipzig, little is known about how Bach's work was received by audiences back then. "We haven't yet found a contemporary witness who really unpacked and wrote down how he felt about this masterpiece," says Michael Maul. And of course, there are no audio recordings. "Otherwise one might be amazed by some things: The sound aesthetics, the tempi."

Some listeners may have been overwhelmed, since Bach's music is dramatic and at times aggressive. One can assume that the congregation was exhausted by the time it was all over. Including the sermons and other "text interludes," the whole thing lasted almost five hours.

'St John Passion' and current affairs

On Good Friday April 10, 2020, Leipzig found itself in the middle of the COVID pandemic. A performance of the Passion was out of the question, anywhere in the world. Yet the Leipzig Bach Festival made history: It developed a unique art project with a small group of creative minds. At the hour of Jesus' death, at 3 pm, a chamber music version of the St. John Passion was performed at Bach's tomb in the St. Thomas Church. It was streamed live and the global Bach community was invited to sing along. That video received millions of views

The focus was on the project's creators: Percussionist Philipp Lamprecht, harpsichordist Elina Albach and the charismatic Icelandic tenor Benedikt Kristjánsson, who presented Bach's work largely as a one-man show. In this reduced form, Bach's music sometimes lost its colorfulness, but the message of the Passion came across all the more urgently and clearly. Steven Walter, the artistic director of the Beethovenfest Bonn, who came up with the idea of the Passion as a trio, also took part.

St John Passion retold anew

The successful project has since been performed more than 50 times at various venues. "I think the St. John Passion is actually still a work that has a lot to tell us, even 300 years after its premiere, and it sounds different every time," Elina Albach told DW. "With every performance, every concert, we have the feeling that we are telling the story anew."

This was also the case during Holy Week of 2022, when the images from Bucha in Ukraine shocked the world. "We played the St. John Passion that day," recalls Albach. "And suddenly the recitatives and crucifixion texts sounded like newspaper reports or news that reached us live from Ukraine on the ticker, so to speak ..."

"Bach exposes, Bach accuses, but Bach also comforts," says musicologist Particia Siegert. "He holds a mirror up to us all, full of thoughtfulness about responsibility, love, life and death."

This article was originally written in German.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 28, 2024 07:50 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).