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though the parts were copied from the score. That is, the score and the
supposedly matching original parts made from it would almost certainly
not agree.
This sounds contradictory, but there are two good reasons that it
would be so. The first is that scores and parts give us different kinds of
information about a composition. Many aspects of a work that are di-
rectly related to performance (details of instrumentation, basso continuo
figures, ornamentation, and the distribution of lines among singers and
players, for example) tend to be reflected only in performing parts. They
represent decisions Bach made in realizing a work for performance and
Which St. John Passion BWV 245? 71
are usually not reflected in a score. The second reason is that Bach could
(and often did) make revisions in the process of copying parts, occa-
sionally changing his mind about certain matters. He might make
changes as he copied or edited the parts prepared by an assistant with-
out bothering to notate these changes in the score. This could lead to
a situation in which the score and parts of the same version transmit
different readings.
If we did find differences in our imaginary comparison of the com-
posing score and original parts of the St. John Passion, would the read-
ings in the score represent a version with the same status as those in the
parts? We could argue that the score reflects Bach s conception of the
work just as much as (or even more than) the parts do; on the other
hand, he never performed the work as notated in a score, only as writ-
ten in parts. If the readings in a score do represent a version, it is some-
how different from the ones we know from the performing parts.
In a way we do have to face this problem. Bach s composing score
for the St. John Passion does not survive, but we do have a later score (a
beautiful fair copy, calligraphically copied from a rougher source in neat
handwriting) partly in his hand, and it is a complex document indeed.
From paper and handwriting we can deduce that Bach began to write
it sometime in the late 1730s, that is, between the documented perfor-
mances of versions III and IV. (We should keep in mind that there may
have been other performances that did not leave any trace in the parts.)
In his copying Bach got only as far as the first ten numbers, stopping
after twenty pages, most of the way through the recitative Derselbige
Jünger war dem Hohenpriester bekannt. We do not know either why
he started a new fair copy or why he broke it off.
Some ten years later, around the time of the performance of version
IV, one of Bach s assistants completed the score. Presumably Bach and
his copyist each used Bach s composing score (the one now lost) as a
model for their new one, but each carried out his work differently.
Bach s assistant made a literal copy of the original score when he started
on page 21, but Bach, apparently not content simply to copy music he
had composed almost fifteen years earlier, had revised the piece as he
wrote pages 1 20, making changes to the first ten numbers in the Pas-
sion. His changes affect details of every aspect of the work. Some of the
most striking are found in the four-part chorales, which Bach enriched
with the chromatic and contrapuntal language characteristic of his later
settings, like those in the Christmas Oratorio.
This score, then, represents a revision of the St. John Passion by
the composer and is arguably yet another version of the piece. More
72 Passions in Performance
precisely, it represents a fragment of a version, because Bach never got
past the first ten numbers; the assistant s later work simply represents a
copy of the original. Here is the truly knotty aspect of this problem:
the revisions were never heard in Bach s time because the new read-
ings never found their way into any of Bach s performing parts, even
those of version IV, which took place after the revisions were made.
The performing parts used for it were, of course, merely adaptations of
the older parts, and so retained the readings from the older versions.
We thus have to ask whether the fragmentary revised version repre-
sented by Bach s portion of the recopied score is comparable to the four
versions we know from the parts, not only because it is transmitted in
a score but also because it was never heard under Bach.
Perhaps the (partial) revision represents a kind of abstract version of
the piece in contrast to the practical versions represented by the per-
forming parts. But this is not necessarily a good distinction because for
Bach (and most composers) the line between the artistic and the prac-
tical is fuzzy or even meaningless. If we like the idea of Bach s return-
ing to his great compositions near the end of his life, assembling, revising,
and refining them in a kind of valedictory act (compare the assembly
of the Mass in B Minor and the preparation of the Art of Fugue for pub-
lication), then perhaps his recopying of the St. John Passion is part of
this process, and this version of the St. John Passion holds a similar
place in his output. But of course Bach began the St. John revisions in
the late 1730s, not his failing last days, and never bothered finishing the
project.
Whether or not we regard the music in the later score as a true version,
we have a wealth of choices in performing the St. John Passion. The
version that most modern listeners know today resembles version I
(1724). It opens with the chorus (really a choral aria) Herr, unser
Herrscher, whose text is a poetic paraphrase of a psalm, and ends with
the choral aria Ruht wohl and a simple chorale setting, Ach, Herr,
laß dein lieb Engelein. It includes a number of accompanied recitatives
and arias among its interpolated commentary movements.
When Bach performed version II in 1725 he made some important
changes that altered the character of the composition while retaining
its Gospel narrative and many of its commentary movements. (The
various versions of the St. John Passion are outlined in table 4 1.) The
opening poetic chorus was replaced by an elaborate chorale setting, O
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