It found favour with the people, since there was no law against its use, so that it began to enter the Church, not in ordinary services, but on festivals. The result was most favourable. We find expressly stated the attention and the devout pleasure with which the congregation listened to the conjunction of song and strings. Gradually, therefore, this music was received into favour, first on festivals and afterwards on Sundays in the principal churches, and that without any special care that the text and expression had any regular connection with particular parts of the Liturgy, much less with the special subject of the sermon. The cantor and music director in fact did not know beforehand what the subject was to be.
Everything else that had been used from former times remained, except that after Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony, entered the Roman Church in 1697, and organised such splendid services in his Court church as had never been before heard in North Germany, more freedom was allowed in the Lutheran churches.
The celebration of the Passion remained as before, and we have only to add that during the Fast and Advent weeks all instruments, including the organ, had to be silent, even during the singing of the thirty-four strophes.
The Origin of Bach’s Passion Music
At last there came to the head of spiritual affairs at Leipsic a man of decided character, highly esteemed as a learned theologian, a very impressive preacher, and respected for his strictness of teaching and life, Salomon Deyling, Doctor and Professor of Theology, &c. (1677-1755). He could no longer endure the state of things in Passion Week, and, since in 1723 the great and famous Sebastian Bach had become cantor of the Thomas School and music director of the two chief churches at Leipsic, he associated himself with him in order to see if his ideas could be put in practice. The idea which he propounded to Bach was this: “The early arrangement of the service was the best, but was only suitable to its own date: we must try and make our arrangement on the model of the earliest, but in keeping with modern requirements.
“On each Palm Sunday and Good Friday the history of the Passion of the Lord is made known antiphonally, according to one or other of the Evangelists, exactly in accordance with the sacred writer’s words! Who could improve on this? They must be sung, how else are they to be understood by all? But they must be sung by some one who can sing! namely by you: and so that everything may sound well and be impressive they must be musically sung, and accompanied.
“Your best singer, who can pronounce clearly and well, must sing the words of the Evangelist in recitative, and, in order to produce more impression and life and variety, the other persons of the story must be represented by other singers, and the Jewish people by a chorus. At the chief points in the story there will be pauses, during which, by means of an aria, the congregation shall lay to heart what they have heard; and that all of us shall be refreshed from time to time, there shall be well chosen verses from all the known hymns, in which the congregation can join. Now, your business is to carry all this out in a connected and artistic manner.” And thus arose Bach’s Passion music, which completely fulfilled everything that was expected of it. However few there were who could understand and honour and enjoy them as art works, these services, and Bach’s method of treating them, were gladly received by the congregation, and the performance of such oratorios became every time a truly edifying and Christian artistic feast.
This account refers of course chiefly to Leipsic. It is supposed that the decay of the performance of the Passion was due to the pupils and sons of Bach, who tried to improve on his and Deyling’s arrangement by the introduction of Italian and lighter methods, which, though pleasing, were soon found to be unsuitable to the simple words of the Bible and Hymn-book.
Early Passion Services