The Evolution of C. P. E. Bach’s St. John Passions

Abstract

During his twenty-year tenure as music director of the five principal churches in Hamburg (1768–1788), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach prepared twenty-one Passions, five each on the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John, and six on the Gospel of Matthew. The longest setting also happens to be the first, the St. Matthew Passion of 1769, the music of which was later incorporated into his Passions-Cantate Wq 233. Even this first Passion uses chorales from Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and all twenty-one Passions are pasticcios to a greater or lesser extent. The earlier settings mostly incorporate music by other composers, including Georg Philipp Telemann, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, Georg Anton Benda, and Gottfried August Homilius, often using parody texts for the arias. But in his second decade, Bach more frequently adapted his own songs as choruses or arias, and in his last settings he wrote almost entirely new music. This article traces the evolution of his St. John Passion settings from his first setting in 1772 through his last in 1788.