After Passion

In the history of Bach’s musical legacy, the St John Passion has always stood in the shadow of the St Matthew Passion. The repercussions of the first revival of the St Matthew after Bach’s death, which took place in Berlin under the direction of the twenty-year-old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, decisively contributed to gaining it a unique position. But at the same time the great success of the St Matthew aroused a wider interest in Bach’s large-scale vocal works that initially benefited the St John Passion above all.
By Charles Johnston

According to the obituary written by his son Carl Philip Emmanuel and his former pupil Johann Friedrich Agricola, Johann Sebastian Bach composed five Passions, including “one for two choirs” (the St Matthew Passion). However, only two of them have survived in their entirety. A third one, the St Mark Passion, has given rise to various reconstructions, and the last two, if they at all existed, are irretrievably lost. Of the two Passions that have come down to us, the St John Passion was the first to be composed; Bach had it performed for the first time in the St Nicholas Church less than a year after taking up his post in Leipzig, on 7 April 1724 (he had taken the liberty of announcing it to the St Thomas Church, which earned him a reprimand; he got away with a somewhat ironic letter of apology).

For nearly 74 years from the death of J.S. Bach in 1750 to Mendelssohn’s fifteenth birthday in 1824 the Matthäus Passion had all but disappeared. Young Mendelssohn’s prized birthday gift - a bespoke a copy of the Passion - was to change music history when five years later he mounted its first performance in the nineteenth century in Berlin. Today it is inconceivable to imagine music without Bach, but in the 1820s his music had been relegated to no more than the exercise-book for students of counterpoint.

David Lang's "the little match girl passion," for vocal quartet doubling on percussion instruments, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008. It's a strong, striking piece with a surprisingly potent emotional punch. Part of its effectiveness derives from the story itself, which is so achingly poignant that it can hardly fail to raise a lump in the throat. The text is primarily compiled from the story by Hans Christian Andersen and from familiar sections from Bach's "St. Matthew Passion," which sound fresh and new in English translation.

Much like Eloy's 1973 LP, Inside, Power and the Passion acts as a transitional album. With more weaknesses than strengths, it contains all the elements that would ensure the artistic success of future albums like Dawn and Ocean…