Continue from Part 2

Marie Jensen wrote (May 6, 2000):

Some time ago Harry asked me to write to the list, when I had been attending Koopman's St. Mark. I have now and I also bought the CD´s signed by Koopman and Mertens themselves. Normally I'm no autograph hunter, but it was funny to stand there next to the stars and tell Mertens that I admired his singing. Kind persons both of them, Mertens calm, Koopman moving his entire body and arms in dancing circles writing his signature the same way as he conducted the orchestra. And what a Schwung this signature has.

Conducting the Koopman way must be like a fitness exercise, circling ,waving his arms and fingers in very expressive ways like a dancer, getting up ,getting seated again, playing organ in both positions for more than two hours, and afterwards during the applauses running around to greet orchestra members and soloists again and again in a nearly maniac way. That man really goes for it!

But to get to the music. Koopman didn't bring his Amsterdam Barock Orchester and Choir.He used our local Radio Symphony Orchestra/Choir. But of couse a few musicians only , on modern instruments!!. The choir had about 30 members. The performance took place in a concert hall. (I like to be in a church listening to Bach, on the other hand, in the concert hall chairs are more comfortable!) Sibylla Rubens was ill. Caroline Stamm was a very fine substitute. The other soloists were Scholl, Pregardien and Mertens. The smaller roles were sung by choir members.

My impression? The great vocal Bach works - we know them so well ,and we have comparisons in our minds. So this was like listening to a piece never heard before. That fact itself makes me listen to it with other ears, than if it was an old acquiantance. So perhaps I write again when I have listened more carefully to the CD's I bought.

But of course as a parody passion , I knew lots of it in advance. Some of the choices were fine, others surprising, but I must say, that none of the selections Koopman had made worked out bad. But I'm certainly no scholar, so for reasons I don't know, musicologists might disagree.

I recognized movements from BWV 25, 182, 4, 179, 186 and 68. There were also some I have heard before but could not place, and I'm glad to say some I did not know.The duet in the second part (Welt und Himmel) was wonderful. If anyone can tell me, where it comes from, I would be delighted.

The opening choir "Geh' Jesu" performed on the melody of the opening choir of BWV 25 was a real good choice. It brings the listener in the right mood, more than "Lasst Fuerstin" normally used here. When I hear it in the Brilliance version I hardly hear any sorrow at all.

Also"Mein Heiland Dir vergess ich nicht" played as the alto aria from BWV 182, sung by bass with a traverso instead of a recorder was a fine choice. There seems to be a text relation here too.

For "Falsche Welt" the BWV 179 aria is exactly as good a choice as the usual BWV 54 one.

Hearing the opening chorus of BWV 68 as ending chorus here makes sense. In fact both texts tell about how the Lord gave His Son to the world , and the melody is fine for the purpose.

Right now I can't think of any examples of Bach in the 1730's borrowing movements from his Mühlhausen period,but please correct me if there are. So the use of BWV 4 was a surprise. But in this context it worked fine. The duet in the first part "Er kommt!" was sung so great, that it became one of the highlights of the night, and the turba chorus "Kreuzige" in stead of Halleluja is of course turning things upside down, but it worked great too.

The lost recitativos are the great issue. St. Mark has many of them, and even with JSB as composer some people don't always like them. This night with Koopman recitativos I had to send my killer glance to some whispering youngsters on the row behind.

The gospel of St. Mark is the oldest of the 4 gospels. It is shorter and more simple and has its own style. It is like this old style shines through, but it is also caused by the construction with very few contemplative movements.Here is no string back up on Jesus. In the CD booklet Koopman writes about his limitations. He knows he never will be able to write like Bach. Sometimes he is quite close, other times he's far away , as when Jesus blesses the wine. But it never sounds as average baroque. There are surprises and soundpainting as well. It does not become boring.

But if we want this passion performed, choises have to be taken, attempts have to be made.It also depends on, why you listen and the answers are again many.

As a whole it was a night with some very beautiful moments especially the last part with a moving chorale and ending chorus. It was also a great pleasure to listen to the world famous singers. They fully deserve their fame. The Koopman recitativos never bored me, but they were not Bach. It was not the great flight, but his version works IMVHO well.

I like it as much as the Trauer Ode version perhaps even better but St. Mark will never be St. Matthew or St. John...

Marten Breuer wrote (May 8, 2000):

< Marie Jensen wrote: I recognized movements from BWV 25, BWV 182, BWV 4, 179, 186 and 68. There were also some I have heard before but could not place, and I'm glad to say some I did not know.The duet in the second part (Welt und Himmel) was wonderful. If anyone can tell me, where it comes from, I would be delighted. >

In the original, it's movement 3 ('Gott, du hast es wohl gefuegt') from cantata BWV 63 ('Christen, aetzet diesen Tag').

Zachary Uram wrote (June 23, 2000):

Reading through the EARLYM-L archives I came upon a message quoting a Mr. Simon Heighes (musicologist?) on a BBC Radio 3 interview program saying:

"The St. Mark Passion, however, was most certainly the work of [is this a typo or what does this 'S' mean?] J.S. Bach and was first performed at the Thomaskirche, Leipzig on Good Friday (23 March) 1731. The autograph manuscript of the St Mark Passion, which in 1764 as in the possession of the Leipzig publisher J.G. Britkopf, has been lost, though a copy of the score made by the Bach collector Franz Hauser (1794-1870) survived until as recently as 1945 when it was burned in Dresden bombings. No other copies of the work are known. Only the libretto, written by Picander (Bach's librettist for St Matthew), remains."

Is this true that we actually had a fair score copy of the "St. Mark Passion" surviving extant as recently as 1945! I know war is horrible and both sides carried out civilian/church bombings but this makes me very mad at the allies for bombing the Dresden church, which had this masterpiece. No excuse for this. Ugh, it is hard to believe that not a single person made an exact copy of this score between 1764 and 1945. Surely a copy must exist somewhere waiting to be discovered yes?

Sir Wingealot wrote (June 24, 2000):

Thank you for asking this question.

The version that I read, without any source attribution, said that the autograph was in the possession of a private collector in Berlin, and that it was lost in the bombings of Berlin.

I hope that someone on the list can give us the real scoop on this one.

Robert Murphy wrote (June 25, 2000):

(To Zachary Uram) Good to hear from you, it's been awhile!!

I am will be in Bach heaven from July 2-8 at Westminster Choir College in Princeton NJ (my graduate alma mater) for Bach Festival 2000 which will focus on the St. Matthew passion. It's a week long workshop that will culminate in a performance at week's end with Fuma Sacra and Westminster Bach Orchestra. In addition to the rehearsals there will be study of the passion from a variety of perspectives, analyzing hte liturgical, theological and cultural backgrounds also master classes and individual lessons, master classes and discussiofor conductors singers, keyboardists, lectures on performance practice, continuo practice and lectures on baroque instruments. I can't wait!!

I have been listening to some of my recordings of the SMP and have found something quite surprising, in that what were some of my favorties are no longer so, and some I didn’t think highly of I really appreciate.

I have two recordings by Karl Richter, one from 1959 and the other from 1979. I really love the 1958 performance, it is not historically informed, but I find the passion, dedication, and above all, love for the work that i never grasped before!! The 1979 is not as good, although the soloists should have been better, Edith Mathis, Janet Baker, Peter Schreier, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, but he perforamnce is leaden and very heavy. I know that Richter died soon after.

I used to really like the Gardiner performance, but in comparison the the 1958 Richter, I find it a bit to glib,and facile. Some of the tempos I find to be way too fast

such as "Ich Will dir mein herzen schenken" although Barbara Bonney sing wonderfully, I don;t find any kind of connection with the words.

I picked up a version by Eugen Jochum and the Concertgebouw Orchestra dating from 1964 in a used bookstore in downtown Minneapolis. It too is quite wonderful. I find that the soloists in Jochum and Richter were operas stars too and I find their voices more satisfying full and rich, they have color in their voices, while in many in the historically informed performances I find the voices too white, lacking in color, very cold sounding!! Of course, that is just my own humble opinion!!

Here is how I would rate my SMP record collection from favourite to least favorite:

1. Karl Richter (1959)

2. Eugen Jochum

3 Nikolaus Harnoncourt

4. John Eliot Gardner

5. Otto Klemperer

6. Karl Richter (1979)

7. David Willcocks

8. Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Concertgebouw, 1985)

Probably more than you wanted to know!!

Thierry van Bastelaer wrote (September 18, 2000):

Has anybody listened to the above? Koopman puts together his own Cantata Top Ten by matching the text of the 1731 St Mark Passion with excerpts from various cantatas. The whole enterprise seems (and sounds) misguided to me, but would love to get opinions from others.

Charles Francis wrote (September 18, 2000):

(To Thierry van Bastelaer) I don't have this particular reconstruction, but I do have one performed by the Tallinna Barock-Orchester under Hans Gebhard. Regarding this performance, Bernd Heyder notes "Even if we can never hear Bach's Markus-Passion in its entirety, we can welcome serious attempts to make it available to the listner via an approximate reconstruction".

Johan van Veen wrote (September 19, 2000):

(To Thierry van Bastelaer) It has been discussed in alt.music.j-s-bach and rec.music.classical.recordings some time ago. You should be able to find it in the dejanews archive. I'll send you my contribution to that discussion privately.

Ramon Khalona wrote (September 19, 2000):
(To Thierry van Bastelaer) There was also an article with an interview to Koopman about this in Fanfare a few months ago.

Andy Evans wrote (September 23, 2000):

(To Thierry van Bastelaer) I heard this reconstruction in the Proms this Summer. The fact that I walked out in the interval should be some comment on it, and that wasn't anything to do with the excellent singing and playing. Endless recitatives with nothing much in them, and very little of the grab-you-by-the-throat Bach that would screw you to your chair.

John Downes wrote (October 23, 2000):

I would ask, 'Don't you think it might be a good idea to have the boys make some spare copies of the parts and scores of the St Mark Passion?'

Richard Adams wrote (January 24, 2001):

At the end of March my choir (The Belfast Philharmonic Choir) will be performing a reconstruction of the St Mark Passion. Following this the music will be available for sale or hire.

This very recent reconstruction by A H Gomme is published by Barenreiter. It uses the original surviving music of Bach's setting supplemented by the St mark setting of Rheinhard Kaiser a contemporary of Bach.

The fact that Barenreiter, the mainstay publisher of Urtext Editions, has decided to publish this work, is the main vote of confidence in this edition as the best performing version likely to appear barring a rediscovery of the original.

We will probably have up to 100 copies available either for purchase or hire and would be prepared to post anywhere in Europe. If you are interested please reply to me either directly or through this news group.

If you happen to be in Belfast on 24 March, come to the Ulster Hall and hear the performance!

Michael Hartney wrote (January 25, 2001):

< Richard Adams wrote: At the end of March my choir (The Belfast Philharmonic Choir) will be performing a reconstruction of the St Mark Passion. >
Chorallisters might be interested in some information about Bach's St. Mark Passion.

We know that Bach composed and performed a St. Mark’s on Good Friday 1731: the score is lost but the libretto survives. It comprises, besides the gospel narrative (the Evangelist’s recitatives and the turba choruses), 16 chorales and 8 “reflective” movements (2 choruses and 6 arias). We also know that after 1729, Bach often borrowed music from earlier works: witness the B-minor Mass (BWV 232) and the Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248). Musicologists believe this is also true of the reflective movements of the St. Mark, and indeed they generally agree on the source of 6 of these 8 movements. Since there are also settings of the 16 chorales to be found in Bach’s other works, we have important elements for a reconstruction of the lost St. Mark Passion.

A number of reconstructions have been attempted over the years. The two most promising date from the 1990’s, one by Andar Gomme (Barenreiter) mentioned by Richard Adams, and one by Simon Heighes (King’s Music) which received its Canadian (and possibly North American) premiere last September at a music festival in Ottawa as part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death. Here are some notes on these two reconstructions.

(1) Chorales: as we have no way of knowing which setting Bach used, the two editors chose whichever setting they thought appropriate. Sometimes they agreed, and sometimes not.

(2) Reflective movements: given that musicologists agree on the musical source for six of these, the editors followed the musicologists. For the other two arias, the editors chose the same music for one of them, but not for the other.

(3) Narrative: as Bach could not have borrowed earlier music for the Evangelist’s recitatives (since it had to fit the text of St. Mark’s gospel), both editors hit upon the same expedient: if we cannot have Bach’s music, that of one of his contemporaries is the next best thing. Both editors chose the St. Mark Passion of Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739) which Bach is known to have performed on at least two occasions (1713 and 1726). Keiser’s passion seems to be the first to surround Jesus’ words with a “halo” of string tone, a device Bach later used in his St. Matthew Passion. So Keiser's narrative music is a good substitute for Bach’s.

But there was one problem with Keiser’s music. It begins with the scene at Gethsemani, while Bach’s libretto begins 26 verses earlier with the preparation for the Last Supper. So there is no music by Keiser for these 26 gospel verses. The two editors settled upon radically different solutions. Gomme chose to begin his reconstruction of Bach’s St. Mark where Keiser’s music begins and to omit the first 26 verses of the narrative. Heighes chose the opposite course but had to find music for these 26 verses: for the 4 turba choruses, he borrowed music from other Bach works, and for the recitatives he wrote the music himself in a Bachian style.

So we have two competing reconstructions of Bach’s St. Mark, very similar in many respects. In both cases, the recitatives are not by Bach, but much of the rest is, and some of it is almost certainly what hactually performed on Good Friday 1731. So, unless Bach’s score re-appears somewhere, these reconstructions are probably the closest we will get to the original work. As someone who took part in the performance of the Heighes version last September, I think every choir should attempt one of these reconstructions, if only for the experience of performing a two-hour "Bach" work no one has ever heard before! (Dare I add that I have parts and scores for the Heighes version?)

By the way, there are also 2 other very different recent reconstructions of the St. Mark out there. One published by Carus has all the missing recitatives replaced by music written in a 20^th century idiom: this makes for a strange hybrid of baroque and modern music (which I find unsatisfying). Ton Koopman has also produced his own reconstruction which deliberately ignores everything musicologists have to say about the sources of the St. Mark. For the arias and choruses, he choses music from Bach’s other works which he considers suitable, and as for the recitatives, he simply writes his own. Neither of these versions seeks authenticity in the way Gomme and Heighes do.

John Howell (Virginia Tech Department of Music, Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A.)

Michael Hartney wrote a most welcome and interesting description of the reconstruction efforts on Bach's St. Mark Passion. I would only add a few warning remarks.

1. Just because we have the libretto (Picander?) that Bach may have used does not mean that Bach used it intact. There is ample precedent for Bach, and others, picking and choosing when setting such a dramatic work, starting at least as early as Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo." This is especially important in dealing with the question of the "missing" 26 verses.

2. Just because "some" musicologists agree to "some" extent on possible movements taken from other works, it's still 90% guesswork. What seems possible, even what seems probable, is not necessarily what is true. We do know, for instance, that when he may have been working on the St. Mark, he had a hurry-up call for funeral music needed at Köthen, and that cantata (which has survived--Actus Tragicus (BWV 106)??--this is without benefit of references) is assumed to have used some of the new music he was working on, with different texts. It is an assumption--an educated guess.

3. Bach was an absolute master at using the Lutheran chorale repertoire for maximum effectiveness. He knew that repertoire backwards and forwards, and his placement of the chorales, his selection of just the right one, his careful selection of just the right verses, and his choice of key and degree of elaboration were always made with great care. Just to select settings which he may have intended for use in other contexts lacks that care, unless the scholar doing the selecting is the equal of Bach in knowledge of the Lutheran church and in Bach's musical craftsmanship.

4. If we lack Bach's setting of the Evangelist's parts, we lack the musical glue that held the entire work together, giving it coherence and shape and drawing the congregation into the emotional unfolding of the drama. Keiser's setting may be very lovely, but Keiser is not Bach and never was. If one must combine them, at least be honest enough to call the result Bach-Keiser or, better yet, Keiser-Bach.

5. So do I object to such pastiche reconstructions being performed? Of course not. It is at least interesting to hear them, and at best may illuminate something unexpected. But let's not get carried away about "the experience of performing a two-hour "Bach" work no one has ever heard before!" Present it as what it is, like the reconstruction of Mozart's C Minor Mass or Beethoven's 10th symphony, or the completion of Mozart's Requiem Mass or Puccini's Turandot. A work by Bach it is not, but it has a certain interest nonetheless.

Yoël L. Arbeitman wrote (April 30, 2001)

While the Simon Heighes reconstruction of the Markus Passion is a nice and pleasant enough listening experience, a rather tranquill experience indeed, it certainly cannot possibly bear any similarity to any Passion which Bach would have composed. The six arias I count are all (except the last, the baritone one) ultra familiar and very beautiful and maybe for some having them in a reconstructed Passion context adds something. But everything else is recitative and chorale and this does not add up to a Bach Passion. The orchestral accompaniment to the closing chorus is very much what we expect from Bach. The performance is beautiful and touching. But I tolerate the Passion texts for the music, not the other way around. But then again, this is a nice experience and it is almost for free in this set which I guess every Bach nut (of vocal Bach) would want to have.Happily this is not a blatantly anti-Jewish text. BTW, there are non-Jews amongst music lovers who are happy neither with the Passion texts nor with some of Wagner's ideas and works. I am sure I will enjoy the historical value of the Lukas Passion as well. Sorrily I missed Homilius' setting at Berkshire, not that I have ever heard of Homilius.

Steven Langley Guy wrote (June 6, 2001):

I am curious. I know that Bach wrote at least three settings of the Passion (the
St. Mark, St. John and St. Matthew), four, if you count the apocryphal Lukas
Passion. Yet I have read somewhere that they may have been another Passion or two composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and the score(s?) for this work is now lost*. Is there any basis in verifiable fact for this assertion?

Many cantatas are lost - we know this. (I think that up to one thousand of Georg Philipp Telemann's cantatas have survived? Or is this estimate too high? More were recently discovered if my memory serves me correctly?)

I wonder what the survival rate of Bach's compositions has been? Do we have 80% of his music? Or perhaps only 60%, or even less? Can we ever know? Anyway, I'm just curious, that's all.

* But being re-assembled 'pasticcio-style' by Ton Koopman as I write! ;-))

Yoël L. Arbeitman wrote (June 7, 2001)

[To Steven Labgley Guy] While we are back to the Lukas Passion which I am sure Steven will hear all the dislike for Koopman's and the liking for the one I mentioned here a few days ago (under Gerhard Rehm),in re my question re the tenor, if anyone has the original CPO or otherwise knows the answers, please do consider responding. Again I repeat that Operissimo has confused the Pseudo-Bach Lukas Passion with that of Penderecki. And maybe I am presently confusing the discussion of Koopman's reconstruction of the Markus Passion with the Lukas, but no matter. About that we can read on the site which Aryeh maintains with all the useful information.

Steven Langley Guy wrote (June 7, 2001):

[To Yoël L. Arbeitman] Sorry, my comment vis-a-vis Koopman was a little bit of flippant nonsense. (I neither condemn nor endorse Koopman's St Mark Passion reconstruction - I heard most of it on the radio and enjoyed in a detached sort of way). I was wondering if there was another lost St. Matthew or St. John Passion. That's all.

Yoël L. Arbeitman wrote (June 7, 2001)

Actually, although I have never heard the Koopman, I followed the advice on this list and did very much enjoy the Markus Passion under Roy Goodman in the same Brilliant Classics Box. It was a good experience and the two Passions, one with real Bach music and the other with excellent albeit non-Bach music, are really worth having even if this set were normal priced. Well none of us would probably pay normal price for the run of the mill Matthäus and Johannes, but a good experience. The lack of notes for the lesser known works and on the performers is a cause for suffering however.

Thierry van Bastelaer (October 17, 2001):
Since I recently joined this group, I don't know whether the above has already been discussed. Any interest at taking aim at it? Should be fun.

Michael Grover wrote (October 17, 2001):

[To Thierry van Bastelaer] It was, in fact, discussed quite a bit several months ago; you could probably find the discussions in theYahoo groups archives. But that certainly doesn't preclude another discussion from starting up!

Yoël L. Arbeitman wrote (October 17, 2001):

[To Thierry van Bastelaer & Michael Grover] No doubt Aryeh's own "archives" (under Great Vocal Works) would be far more suitable and commodius than the Yahoo archives. http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/index.htm

Markus-Passion BWV 247: Details and Discography
Discussions: General: Part 1 | Part 2
Individual Recordings: BWV 247 - R. Goodman | BWV 247 - T. Koopman
Article: Narrative Parody In Bach's St. Mark Passion [W. Hoffman]