Johann Sebastian Bach: St Mark Passion BWV 247

There are at least two Passion settings by Johann Sebastian Bach: those according to the Gospels of St John and St Matthew. In light of the extensive number of cantatas by the cantor at St Thomas, it is difficult to believe that he would have showed no interest in the other accounts of Christ’s suffering and death at Golgotha. While a proposed Passion according to St Luke was shown not to have been written by Bach, things stand differently concerning the St Mark Passion recorded here: this is known to have been performed by Bach since its libretto survives – the music, however, is lost.

In the last decades, numerous composers set out to reconstruct this work. One of the most successful attempts at re-awakening Bach’s genius was prepared by the musicologist Simon Heighes in 1995; he created a convincing version of the St Mark Passion by making reference to an oratorio by Reinhard Keiser (1674–1739) which appears to have been used as a model by Bach, and by setting the texts to other extant cantata movements by the great cantor at St Thomas.

With a work which may never have existed in this form, though it may well have done, the performers of this recording approach Bach in a tantalising manner. As Bach scholar Christoph Wolff has suggested, such approaches ‘time and again lead to the awe-filled recognition of the composer’s greatness as well as to the mourning of irrevocable losses’. Bach’s St Mark Passion as reconstructed by Simon Heighes is a praiseworthy attempt to make this particular loss less painful.

Veronika Winter
Anne Bierwirth
Achim Kleinlein
Michael Jäckel
Albrecht Pöhl
Hannoversche Hofkapelle
Knabenchor Hannover
Jörg Breiding