DER FÜR DIE SÜNDE DER WELT LEIDENDE UND STERBENDE JESUS, PASSIONSORATORIUM VON BARTHOLD HEINRICH BROCKES, tvwv5:1

• Published in: Eighteenth-century music 2010-03, Vol.7 (1), p.136
• Main Authors: SWACK, JEANNE, TELEMANN, LANGE, GEORG PHILIPP, CARSTEN
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 18th century; Antisemitism; Composers; Judaism; Musical performances
• ISSN: 1478-5706; 1478-5714
• DOI: 10.1017/S1478570609990601

Brockes's text, of course, is best known for its appearance in Bach's St John Passion; compare, for example, Telemann's and Bach's settings of 'Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen' (textual changes in Bach's setting have been noted elsewhere by Michael Marissen, in his Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism, and Bach's St. John Passion: With an Annotated Literal Translation of the Libretto (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 30-31). The concert venue had been changed at the last moment from the orphanage to the church as a result of the overwhelming sale of the libretto, promising an audience that would require the seating capacity of the church (guards were posted to prevent the entry of anyone who had not bought a libretto). The composer's use of unusual playing techniques for special effects extended to the strings, especially in the soprano aria 'Brich, brüllender Abgrund', where in the B section the upper strings are given the instruction 'Hier können die Bogen nahe am Stege touchieren', essentially a direction to play sul ponticello or close to it; the passage consists of repeated semiquavers in the strings, illustrating the trembling of the heavens at the crucifixion. Brockes himself seems to have borne no love for the Jews, whether the ancient Jews of the Bible or the contemporary Jews in Hamburg or its environs (and in this attitude he had the support of the local Lutheran clergy).