Bach's St. John Passion

Performing choral music has always triggered my emotions, but singing the St. John Passion, was more emotionally complex than anything I had sung before.  The melodies follow the words in a carefully structured pattern, bringing greater meaning to the text and evoking deep emotions.  I have always found that singing with a group brings greater joy or sadness, but I had never performed a piece a large as Bach’s contested St. John Passion.  Each section utilizes both melody and text that evokes emotion in the listener.  It is the link between the melody and words that was brought up during Monday’s panel discussion, which I believe allows a vast array of emotions to be felt and expressed.  Professor Brumberg-Kraus used the example of part 20, a tenor aria that discusses a whipped and blood-stained back is like the heavens that created a rainbow, following the great flood.  It is an allusion to the curved arc of the shapes, which another professor commented was also used in the orchestral part.  During the aria, the violas are producing an arc-shaped sound, complementing the text.  I found similar examples in later sections such as 21d, which is a choir.  The words are ‘Kreuzige, Kreuzige’, which is ‘crucify, crucify’ but the K and the R are emphasized, creating a cutting sound.   The sound becomes angry and harsh complementing the anger and fear in the text. 

My last is example is the last Choir, which is 39 and the text states “The grave that is allotted to you and encloses no further suffering, opens heaven for me and closes off Hell”.  The melody is peaceful and soft much like the peaceful rest of Jesus’s soul and the souls of his devotees.  Each section carries with it an emotion that is channeled through the singer and orchestra to the listener in an exhausting fashion.  With each section, even the solos, I could feel the emotional roller coaster between sadness, anger, joy, and fear.  I would be interested to see the listener’s reactions in the original context of the piece.  Our audience was extremely diverse and not all came from a religious context rather for many it was about the experience.  Although I am not strictly religious myself, I could feel the emotions of each word and sound.  In class on Tuesday the idea of music as a religious experience was briefly discussed.  I would define my participation in singing Bach’s St. John the Passion as religious, but not because the piece itself was religious but rather it was the emotions it induced that were morphed it into a religious experience.

Chor 39: Ruht Wohl