Choruses and chorales The chorus may represent different groups in the Passion. In the opening and closing movements, it stands for the congregation of Bach’s time. In the biblical turbas, they can impersonate soldiers and priests among others. Sometimes they are introduced by the Evangelist by the simple pronoun “they,” whose interpretation has given rise to some intense debates. Since in many of the turbas “they” call for Jesus’s death and Barabbas’s release, and since the Gospel recitative often refers to “the Jews” in general (rather than “high priests, scribes, and elders” as in St. Matthew), the St. John Passion is sometimes accused of having anti-Semitic overtones. It is, however, not clear if imprecise lingustic usage should be construed as religious prejudice (“the Jews” doesn’t necessarily mean “all the Jews”). We know that Jesus, himself a Jew, was strongly opposed by some Jewish conservatives; in other words, the conflict was not between “the Jews” and others, but rather between different Jewish factions. Therefore, it is entirely wrong to say that “the Jews killed Jesus,” a claim the Gospel itself never makes; in fact, the narrative makes it amply clear that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, had the final say in the matter. Recent research has even shown that Bach had actually softened some of the anti-Jewish rhetoric present in the Gospel and in Luther’s translation of it. German audiences in Bach’s time were intimately familiar with the words and the melodies of the chorales (Lutheran church hymns), but Bach’s harmonizations were new (and quite startling at times). In the Passions, chorale settings are strategically placed at key moments when it is time to take a step back and reflect communally on what has just been said in the biblical narrative. The St. John Passion has eleven chorale movements using eight different chorale melodies. In addition, the solo line in the bass aria Mein teurer Heiland (“My precious Savior”), sung after Jesus’s death, is intertwined with a chorale (on a melody previously heard) performed by the chorus. The most striking of the chorales is the one with which the entire work ends. It is preceded by the grandiose chorus Ruht wohl (“Be at peace”), which could very well function as the concluding movement of the Passion (and actually did so in the third version of the work). This “lullaby” shares its general mood and meter with the final chorus of the St. Matthew Passion, although its text, in true Johannine spirit, says: “Be at peace, you holy bones, which I will no longer bewail.” The emphasis, once again, is on triumph and glorification, not on mourning. The final chorale, which follows Ruht wohl in three of the four versions, drives that point home forcefully, ending as it does with a resounding praise of the victorious “Lord Jesus Christ.” —Peter Laki, Visiting Associate Professor of Music, Bard College
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