Immediately after the completion of the St. John Passion, his first great passion oratorio, Bach commenced work on the St. Matthew Passion. This extended over several years, and was by no means completed even at the first performance on Good Friday 1729. Neither the full score nor the parts of this performance have been preserved, it is true, yet circumstantial evidence that cannot be ignored indicates that the work as we know it, as it has come down to us in a splendidly prepared autograph full score and a complete, mainly autograph set of parts, was only brought into its final form by means of a whole series of revisions and rearrangements. Since a knowledge of the work’s architecture contributes to a better understanding of it, and in many respects has determined the present interpretation, its construction will be briefly sketched here in its various phases. (I have essentially followed the convincing explanations of Friedrich Smend.)
The St. John Passion is, like many instrumental works of Bach’s Köthen period, built symrnetrically around a central point. This principle results neither from the Passion text not from the poetry of the madrigalian sections (arias, accompagnati etc); it was, rather, established from the very beginning as a ground plan, as it were, into which the work was subsequently fitted, text repetitions in the Passion narrative serving as a welcome aid.
At first it seemed obvious to apply this so successful principle, which had given the St. John Passion a convincing compactness and a clearly discernible architecture, also to the new work. Bach indeed arranged the first movements he composed in this manner. As the textual basis for the madrigalian sections he used Picander’s "Erbauliche Gedancken auf den Grünen Donnerstag und Charfreitag... 1725", (Edifying Thoughts on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday... 1725), altering these texts, however, in many places.
In order to establish the symmetrical axis, the centre of gravity of the work, the only passage in St. Matthew’s passion narration that is literally repeated, the cry of the people "Lass ihn kreuzigen" (Let him be crucified), seemed an obvious choice. The architectural centrepiece in the first conception of the work does indeed lie between these repetitions:
- Chorale: “Wie wunderbarlich ist doch diese Strafe" (“How miracolous indeed is the punishment”)
- Evangelist: “Der Landptleger sagte" (“And the governor said”)
- Pilate: “Was hat er denn Übels getan?” (“Why, what evil hath he done”)
- Soprano: “Er hat uns allen wohlgetan” (“He has done good to us all”)
- Soprano: “Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben” (“Out of love my saviour is willing to die”)
These pieces stand out from all the rest of the work, both textually (the meaning of Jesu's guiltless suffering is here made clear) and musically (through the use of wind instruments in the soprano and alto register throughout, thus creating a completely transcendental aunosphere). It is also striking that this central point lies in both Passions in exactly the same place as regards their content, namely at Pilate’s change of attitude. As in the St. John Passion, this central point was preceded and followed by choruses and arias that matched each other musically to a very high degree, so that a clearly recognizable structural framework came into being.
The other pieces that lie between them (Gebt mir meinen Jesum wieder, Befiel du deine Wege, Können Tränen meiner Wangen, Ja freilich will in uns das Fleisch und Blur, Komm süsses Kreuz) were not yet contained in this first scheme. The framework of the entire composition, the sections before and after this symmetrical middle block, was also formed on similar lines to that of the St. John Passion.
It is very possible that Bach then stopped working on the St. Matthew Passion for several years. When he resumed work on it he had an entirely new conception of its form. Picander, probably in collaboration with Bach, had extended his poem by several arias; the composer now placed these in between the already completed sections, thus destroying the original symmetry - it had evidently become unimportant. Four more chorale verses were inserted to the melody “Herzlich tut mich erfreuen" (O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden had been the only one hitherto), each one lower in key than the one before, up till the death of Christ, which is now the central point towards which the entire work strives. “Erkenne mich, mein Hüter" in E major, “Ich will hier bei dir stehen” in E flat major, “Befiehl du deine Wege” in D major and “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden” in C major. Into this last chorale he pours the full depth of his most personal and profoundly stirred emotions at the death of Christ. Never before had a chorale text been interpreted in music with harmonies so charged with emotion. This chorale, and the words of the centurion and
those with him “Wahrlich, dieser ist Gottes Sohn gewesen" (Truly this was the Son of God), are set here in such a manner that they make clear to all how the beginning and the meaning of the Christian Faith result from the events of the Passion. Hencefcrth they form the heart of the work.
The final chorus of the First Part, the Chorale fantasia “O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross", was originally composed by Bach as the opening chorus of the St. John Passion. After the final revision of the latter work it was replaced by the chorus “Herr, unser Herrscher”. It is probable that Bach ultimately incorporated it into the St. Matthew Passion because this glorious piece of music might well have become lost as a torso, but fitted well here.

The Double Choir
The most striking feature of the St. Matthew Passion is its use of two choirs. When we consider the enormous difficulties that Bach had to overcome in order to perform his largescale works, we can judge how important the use of a double choir must have been to him if he demands it nevertheless. It was already difficult enough in Leipzig to get together a single orchestra with about three first and three second violins and the necessary wind players, but here everything was needed in double. The problems cannot have been any smaller regarding the choir and the soloists; Bach is known to have striven continually to enlarge the capable part of his choir, so that he could use at least two or three good singers to each part. Why did he create additional difficulties for himself here?
A few words about double choral writing in this connexion. Ancient antiphonal singing in the liturgy between precentors and plainsong ‘schola’, or several groups, or between clergy and congregation, is basically the double choir principle - various choirs or soloists in different parts of the church sing in alternation. This kind of song is especially impressive when, for instance, the words of the solo singer are repeated by a large group, or when several groups sing to each other as if in an enormous dialogue. This mode of singing made it possible for the congregation to feel a vivid participation. No wonder that this exceedingly festive and impressive manner of singing was also taken up by art music. Around 1550 the Netherlands composer Willaert wrote his famous "Salmi spezzati" for St. Mark’s in Venice, psalm compositions divided between two choirs. This Work counts as the first great and systematic attempt at double choral writing, and lays the foundation for the great flowering of this mode of writing in Venice in the hundred years that followed. The structure of St. Marks’s, with its cruciform ground plan and its galleries facing one another, is also sure to have played a role here. The main reason for double choral, or better polychoral writing (soon more and more groups were placed in the most various positions in the churches), is sure to have been the incredibly festive quality with which the entire space resounded from all sides - a genuinely baroque idea. This manner of composition spread very quidrly; there arose a truly characteristic style of polychoral composition, not only for vocal music but for instrumental music as well. Smaller groups, even single soloists were frequently contrasted with large orchestras or choirs. The baroque concerto, the playing with and against each other of solo and tutti groups, has one of its most important origins here. One of the most expansive works of this category was the Festive Mass that Orazio Benevoli composed in 1628 for the consecration of Salzburg Cathedral: its 53 parts were divided between twelve different choirs. In the 17th century, polychoral works were composed everywhere outside Italy too, in England, France, Austria, Germany. Their principal aim was baroque splendour and theatrically, and they mostly served festive occasions.
When Bach composed his St. Matthew Passion, the fashion of polychoral writing had already declined; musical qualities of other kinds had displaced these effects. Bach himself had already written some motets for double choir, mainly for large-scale funeral services for high ranking personalities in Leipzig. The double choral writing here, however, only served to spread and enrich the sound; it was thus the solemnity for the occasion that was to be emphasized. In the St. Matthew Passion something else is the decisive factor from the very beginning: the dialogue character of Picander's poem. Naturally, in this most greatly dimensioned work of Bach’s, the unfolding of the richest imaginable musical means is also certain to be a main reason for this manner of composition. But the double choral writing here is not only used as a splendid play of sound; it is also intended to impart musical-rhetorical form to the Passion text and the contemplative dialogic poem as a magnificent musical conversation between two groups of performers. Picander's text on the Passion story according to St. Matthew is a meditative dialogue between the Daughter of Zion and the Faithful. The Daughter of Zion, a personification of Jerusalem in the Old Testament (in Isaiah), is regarded by Christians as a symbol of the Church, as the Bride of the Lord. Bach probably wanted all the text passages spoken by the “Daughter of Zion” to be sung originally by a soloist only, thus in particular the First Choir of the opening chorus. He later emphasized the generality of this character more strongly, so that it is no longer a concrete personality. He could thus let her words be sung by each of the soloists, and even by the choir.
One can see from the various stages of the work’s development that the double choral writing, which was only faintly established at the beginning, gradually came more and more into the foreground, becoming increasingly important. At first, probably also at the first performance at St. Thomas’s Church in 1729, the choirs would have stood on the left and on the right of the big gallery, and could thus have been accompanied by one organ. In the violin solos of “Erbarme dich” and “Gebt mir meinen jesum wieder” the soloist of the one orchestra was accompanied by the ripenists of the other; this is only possible if they are not too far apart from one another. In all probability the vocal soloists were also originally shared between the two choirs; there were thus only four soloists. In the course of Bach’s further work on the Passion, the separation of the choirs became increasingly distinct. At the second performance in 1736, we learn from the sexton Rot that it was given in “St. Thomas’s with both organs”, which means that the two choirs with their orchestras were placed opposite each other at the east and west ends of the church. It was then absolutely necessary that each orchestra had its own continuo instrument. The violin solos were now also allotted to one of the two orchestras and, as the hnal and most important step, each choir was given its own complete quartet of soloists.
In dividing the work between the two choirs, Bach fundamentally gave the words of the Daughter of Zion to the First Choir and those of the Faithful to the Second. The Evangelist and Christ belong to the First Choir. This principle is also maintained in the arias and choruses for one choir only. The arias and recitatives of the First Choir are sung by the Daughter of Zion as it were (Du lieber Heiland du - Buss und Reu, Wiewohl mein Herz in Tränen schwimmt - Ich will dir mein Herze schenken, Erbarme dich, mein Gott, Er hat uns allen wohlgetan - Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben, Ja freilich will in uns das Fleisch und Blut - Komm süsses Kreuz, Mache dich mein Herze rein). The arias of the Second Choir are sung by the various personifications of the Faithful (Blute nur du liebes Herz, Der Heiland fällt vor seinem Vater nieder - Gerne will ich midi bequemen, Mein Jesus schweigt zu falschen Lügen stille - Geduld, Gebt mir meinen Jesum wieder, Erbarm es Gott - Können Tränen meiner Wangen). Bach never allotted arias to definite concrete characters, for instance “Erbarme dich” to Peter or “Gebt mir meinen Jesum wieder” to Judas; such an attitude would only theatricalize the entire work. The action is presented exclusively by the gospel text, all madrigalian sections are meditations in the spirit of the situation, and are always meant in a generally valid sense. Bach has even omitted or rewritten passages wherever the aria texts in the original poem are uttered by biblical characters.
The double choir is thus an essential ingredient of the musical and poetical conception in the madrigalian part of the St. Matthew Passion. How, then, do the biblical texts fit into this plan? This question mainly concerns the choruses of the Disciples, ]ews and High Priests, since the speaking characters are allotted to the First Choir from the outset - only the two false witnesses are singing in the Second Choir. The excited, sometimes fierce choruses oft he High Priests, Elders and the people are for double choir, without dialogue; the impression of a fierce crowd is achieved here by means of the calls and cries resounding from every side (Ja nicht auf das Fest, Er ist des Todes schuldig, Weissage, Was gehet uns das an, Lass ihn kreuzigen, Sein Blut komme über uns und unsre Kinder, Gegrüsst seist du, Der du den Tempel Gottes zerbrichst, Anderen hat er geholfcn, Herr, wir haben gedad1t). Where smaller groups speak, only one chorus sings; the disciples are fundamentally protrayed by the First Choir (Wozu dienet dieser Unrat, Wo willst du dass wir dir bereiten, Herr bin ichs). The small group in the palace of the High Priest who challenge Peter are sung by the Second Choir (Wahrlich, du bist auch einer von denen). Two short choruses are distributed according to dramatic principles; “Some” sing (lst Choir) “Der rufet dem Elias”, the “Others” reply “Halt, lass sehen”. All movements that express the community of all Christians are sung by both choirs together. These movements are thus really for single choir. Bach underlines this by the notation in his full score: whereas all the double choruses, even those in which the two choirs are practically identical, have been written out by Bach in two separate sets of staves, all the chorales, the chorale arrangement “O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross” and "Wahrlich, dieser ist Gottes Sohn gewesen” are only written out simply.
We thus see that the writing for double choir was of unusual importance to the composer, and that he accepted great technical difficulties in order to carry it through consistently. The performing material written out by Bach himself shows exactly what Bach wanted played and sung by whom. It would thus have been quite impossible for the vocal solos of the First and Second Choirs to have been sung by the same singers, since they are included in the choral parts of the choirs concerned. It would be just as impossible to play the instrumental solos - such as the two gamba solos - from the same place, or to let one continuo player accompany both choirs; in each most carefully written and figured part there are only rests in the pieces for the other choir.
The writing for double choir is, however, also a problem of acoustics. It is a well known fact that Bach was thoroughly conversant with questions of room acoustics, and in his time it was a self-understood aspect of musical craftsmanship that the speed of changes of harmony and of modulations, for instance, had to be adapted to the reverberation period of the room. This adaptation to the room is, of course particularly important in a work for double choir with the choirs placed far apart, since the acoustics of the room will strongly influence the performance. A Gothic church with reverberant acoustics cannot fail to destroy the effect of such a work. St. Thomas’s Church in Leipzig today has rather reverberant acoustics, which have been quoted by musicologists from time to time as an indication of very slow tempi. In Bach’s time, however, it had wooden panelling and therefore, as calculations have shown, had about as much reverberation as a very good concert hall when there were a few hundred people inside it. It was thus ideally suited to Bach’s harmonically complicated works, and especially to the high degree of clarity demanded by the St. Matthew Passion.
The complete separation of the choirs musically only makes sense when the two choirs are also completely separated spatially. If, as in the usual Passion performances in the concert hall, they are placed immediately beside each other or often even overlapping one another, then Bach's distribution of the soloists is also meaningless. Today it is almost always one solo quartet only that sings the solos of the First and the Second Choir. Then, it must be said, the division into two orchestras and choirs also looses all its significance, since the listener cannot perceive any difference in the direction from which the sound comes unless he is sitting in the front row.
In this recording a separation of the choirs in Bach’s manner has been attempted; the two choirs and orchestras were placed opposite each other, each choir has its own soloists and also its own organ. Since this is not a recording of a particular performance but entirely a gramophone record production, we wanted to attain a distribution of the forces that also gave the best possible stereophonic effect. Thus the pieces genuinely written for one choir, in which this type of writing is even a part of the musical message, are performed in the middle, as one choir. These are, as already mentioned, the chorales, the chorale fantasia “O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross” and the chorus “Wahrlich, dieser ist Gottes Sohn gewesen”. We believe that one does fullest justice to a work like the St. Matthew Passion, in which the placing of various groups and the direction and blending of their sound is an essential part of the total form, with an interpretation of this form conceived in terms of the gramophone record so that its meaning can be understood as clearly as possible.

The Text
Not only the musical text, but also the literary text has been newly revised and corrected for this recording, with the aid of the autograph score and parts. Many differences appeared to the text versions normally sung today. We finally decided in favour of the original text, even where inflexions of words occur that are no longer used. After all, a whole series of such words has always been sung in the St. Matthew Passion hitherto, e.g. “ihr wisset, dass nach zween Tagen Ostern wird”. The retention of individual forms of this kind and the modernization of others, as is general practice today, appeared inconsistent to us, and so the original text has been sung here in every case. The most important difference is probably that in the second verse of the chorale “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden”, where now instead of "Wealtgerichte" (Judgement of the world) we have “das grosse Weltgewiclite, wie bist du so bespeit”. This latter text (“weight of the World") is the right one, “the great judgement of the world” being a falsification and disturbance of the sense of the original text. Again, the punctuation, exclamation and question marks and the commas have not been placed according to the rules of modern grammar, but according to the original text. This appeared important to us, because they are often observed in the composition. In should be possible ro perceive the meaning of the musical interpreration of the text while following the words.

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