Passions-Cantate, BR-CPEB D2・Wq 233 (Score)

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach scored a real hit with his Passion cantata. The work was already so popular during his lifetime that there were public calls for repeat performances every year. Bach himself is said to have dubbed the work his “Spinnhauß Passion”: following the premiere in 1770, a tradition of annual performances was established at Hamburg’s Spinnhaus church until 1785.

This crowd-pleaser is musically very closely related to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s St. Matthew Passion of 1769. The composer simply reused the majority of the solo movements from the older work, supplemented with new recitatives, a chorale and two choruses. In contemporary fashion, he rejected the biblical text in favor of a poetic version written by Anna Louisa Karsch. And thus the St. Matthew Passion became a Passion cantata.

This more modern and perhaps also more accessible genre struck a nerve. Numerous manuscript copies and librettos confirm the work’s popularity far outside the environs of Hamburg.

The score is volume IV,3 of the C.P.E. Bach Complete Edition, edited by Moira Hill for the Packard Humanities Institute in Los Altos (California). Carus publishes the vocal score and choral score for this work. Also available from Carus: the high-quality clothbound full score and orchestral material.