Bach – St. John Passion
This oratorio is a musical setting of the gospel according to John. “Die Johannespassion” is set in 40 movements, consisting of an opening chorus, with many chorales, recitatives and arias in between and a final chorale to finish the passion. It was written for the Good Friday vespers in 1724 for the “Nikolaikirche” and the “Thomaskirche”, the two churches in Leipzig for which he was responsible for music. Bach revised this piece many times before finally letting it be performed and letting it deliberately sound “unfinished” at times.
1. Chorus – Herr, unser herrscher
This movement is scored for 2 Flauto traverso (the baroque equivalent of the concert flute) and Oboe parts (the oboes double the flutes), Violin 1&2, Viola, Basso continuo (in this case he specifies Bassoon, Cello/Bass and Organ) and full SATB choir.
The piece starts out with an ostinato/sequenced violin semiquavers in thirds, with quaver violas and ostinato basso continuo playing the bottom G (Played as F#). With this accompaniment finished, Bach adds two long, sustained double Flute & Oboe parts which form multiple suspensions throughout the introduction, both 4-3-4 and normal (e.g. Normal sus In bar 1 b3, 4-3-4 sus in bar 11 b3+4). The violins don’t always stay in thirds, but they will stay in parallel in terms of the shape of each set of semiquavers (with a few exceptions). This opening has been compared to a machine or an army approaching.
The choir enters with a strong Gm chord, then an Eb major 2nd inv. Then a F#o7 chord last inversion, quite an unusual opening for someone like Bach, who would never use a last inversion or use a 2nd inversion outside a Ic-V-I progression. After these chords, the sopranos, altos and tenor sing parts very similar to that of the opening violin parts, with repeated semiquaver ascending sequences.
In Bar 33 onwards, the ATB parts use imitative entries at the same intervals as the bass, with the altos singing an octave higher. Bach starts to use a call and response between the sopranos and basses at 37, with the basses lowering one note every time they sing the semiquaver passage, with the sopranos repeating their passage a third below the basses’ passage (two octave higher), forming a descending sequence.
At 47, Bach also uses imitative entries by passing the soprano melody down one part every beat, forming another polyphonic texture. At bar 50, Bach passes a semiquaver melody between the sopranos and altos and two beats later, passes between the tenors and basses (with the soprano’s and the altos still going). This passage descends in a circle of fifths (A-D-G-C-F-Bb) ending with a perfect cadence in Gm.
Strangely, the next passage starts in Eb major but quickly moves into Cm then Fm then Gm, finshing at bar 69 on a A7 last inversion. This passage once again uses imitative entries to layer the four parts on top of each other.
The rest of the piece uses other fugal, imitative and sequenced entries which I’ve mentioned before, and a full analysis of each of these is not particularly need, so I won’t bother talking about them. The piece, once it has reached the end, repeats itself to the very beginning then finishes at the dal segno at bar 58.
