In 1723, JS Bach was appointed Director of Music in Leipzig and Cantor of the St Thomas Boys Choir, made up of boys from the city’s Thomasschule and affiliated with the Thomaskirche. Bach’s duties included teaching Latin (a task he delegated to a deputy); training four choirs of school-boys; giving instrumental lessons to the most promising pupils; and producing music for four of the city’s churches – as well as for its civic ceremonies. Bach retained his position in Leipzig until his death in 1750. Throughout this time, Passiontide was the focal point of the Lutheran ecclesiastical year. No music was permitted during Lent, as part of the general abstinence from excess, and this afforded the musical contingent of the church more time in which to prepare Bach’s music.

The authorities at another Leipzig church, the Neue Kirche, had introduced an oratorio Passion into their Good Friday vesper liturgy on 26 March 1717, a few years before Bach’s arrival in the city. It seems unlikely that any of those involved in this decision could have anticipated quite what this would mean for the history of music. Yet while Bach’s name is now inextricably linked with the musical Passion, his contributions to the genre formed part of a wider tradition.

Passion plays dated back to the 13^th century; by the 15^th century, musical versions were evolving into richly textured settings of Biblical texts, performed by singers representing both the crowd and groups of individuals. By the 16^th century, several Passion forms were emerging within the Catholic liturgy. In the Lutheran tradition, Martin Luther’s friend Johannes Walter was instrumental in developing the evangelical Passion style, which also included intricate music for groups of singers; three fine examples of this Passion style were written by Heinrich Schütz. What then emerged was the ‘oratorio Passion’; in north Germany, from the middle of the 17^th century, Passion narratives were decorated with arias and chorales with instrumental accompaniment. The choice of text evolved from the Passiontide sermons given in Lutheran churches, which included reflections on each scene of Christ’s Passion. The oratorio came to be performed in two halves, framing the sermon itself.

This trend for oratorio Passions was eventually accepted in conservative Leipzig just in time for Bach to explore the form. Following the Neue Kirche’s lead, the Thomaskirche introduced the custom in 1721. The sexton Johann Christoph Rost noted that ‘on Good Friday of the year 1721, in the vesper service, the Passion was performed for the first time in concerted style.’ This was just two years before JS Bach took up his position as Cantor, and Johann Kuhnau’s St Mark Passion, performed there, became an important model for Bach’s works. Bach had also made a transcript of Reinhard Keiser’s St Mark Passion when he was in Weimar, some time before 1714, so his interest in the form preceded his move to Leipzig, while some research suggests that several numbers used in the 1725 version of the St John Passion may date from an earlier Passion composed by Bach in 1717, now lost.

Bach’s addition of arias, akin to the Italian operatic style, and of larger opening and closing choruses to bookend the work more emphatically, were among the innovative enhancements he made to the oratorio Passion style. The frequency of the chorales, with their deeply expressive four-part writing, was also new. Bach’s characteristic mature style is most evident in the arias and opening and closing choruses, and much of the St John Passion bears a strong relationship with late 17th-century Lutheran precedents, in particular in the clarity of the choruses, which closely follow the action.

The St John Passion details Christ’s arrest, trial and crucifixion, with recitatives performed by Christ, Pilate, Peter, and John, the Evangelist. The arias comment upon and pause the action, creating moments of meditation; in Part One there are just three. The chorus represents the crowd (the people, soldiers and priests); in the chorales, it represents us, too.

The unprecedented drama and intensity of the St John Passion must have had a profound impact on the Leipzig congregation hearing the work for the first time; the crowd-scenes are as theatrical as anything one might find in Baroque opera. Yet this was relatable drama, too; public executions were a grim part of Leipzig life, so the earthier aspects of the Passion story, far from depicting something remotely historical, would have had vivid resonance.

Joanna Wyld’s full article appears in the programme for our performance of the St John Passion on Sunday 29 March 2026.