Presenting religious music in the concert hall can be awkward, primarily because its message is overtly religious – consider the Mass text, which has been set countless times by countless composers and is frequently performed in concert, and which always contains the words "Credo in unum Deum," i.e., "I believe in one God." At most concert hall performances of religious music, neither the performers nor the audience will uniformly subscribe to what the words are actually saying. But non-religious people, and people whose religious beliefs are not those being sung about, still participate either as performers or as audience members, either because the religious "message" resonates with them in a more universal way, or because the music itself has meaning for them, or both.
Bach’s St. John Passion, however, takes the "problem" of religious music in the concert hall a giant step further. The work consists of a musical setting of the "passion" portion of the Gospel According to John, along with a number of choruses and arias on related but non-biblical texts. And, as is well known, the Gospel of John is the only one of the four gospels that talks not of "the people," but of "the Jews." According to John, for example, it is "the Jews" that urge a vacillating Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus instead of the criminal Barabbas; it is "the Jews" who accuse Pilate of disloyalty to Caesar if he does not follow through with the crucifixion; and it is "the Jews" of whom Joseph of Arimathaea is so afraid that he keeps his allegiance to Jesus a secret. Taking the Gospel According to John at face value, a reader could certainly conclude "yeah, I guess the Jews really did kill Jesus." Some, in fact, maintain that that is exactly the conclusion to which it is supposed to lead. Others acknowledge the difficulty that the text poses for modern readers, but maintain that it is simplistic and ahistorical to dismiss the Gospel of John as an anti-semitic screed. In any event, the canard of Jewish collective responsibility for the death of Jesus has a long and terrible history of consequences for Jews, particularly European Jews; the Catholic Church did not formally renounce the "blood libel" until 1965; and today’s anti-semites continue to invoke the Gospel of John to "prove" their case (see this site for an example: http://www.truthinhistory.org/jews.htm).
Unlike a Mass, then, where the performers take on the "role" of a believer declaring faith in God, the performers in the St. John Passion take on the roles of "the Jews," who repeatedly call for Jesus’s crucifixion; of Pilate, who reluctantly agrees to crucify Jesus after trying to talk "the Jews" out of it; and of St. John himself, who at least arguably assigns the blame for Christ’s death to "the Jews." Bach doesn’t pull any punches in his setting of the gospel text – for example, the passages where "the Jews" call for Jesus to be crucified are bone-chilling in their ferocity. And, unfortunately, the texts of some of Bach’s other compositions (scroll down to mvts. 2 and 5) suggest that while Bach may not have been overtly anti-semitic, he probably wasn’t exactly a visionary when it came to overcoming 17th-18th century German/Lutheran anti-semitism. (This text (mvt. 1) and this one (mvt. 3) also suggest that Bach was not what we’d call "progressive" in his views of other races and religions.) Like all of us, Bach was a creature of his time and place.
But it’s important to remember that the St. John Passion isn’t only a setting of the gospel text. Rather, Bach reserves some of his most sublime music for the "commentaries," the non-biblical texts interspersed in the narrative that say nothing about "the Jews." Instead, these commentaries are intensely personal – they are often (though not always) written in the first person. In one scholar’s view, Bach believed "that all humans (except Jesus), tainted by original sin, are guilty and in need of redemption, German Lutherans most of all, for they have had the benefit of a restored Gospel in the vernacular and cannot claim ignorance." So Bach uses these "commentary" passages to "take the focus away from the perfidy of ‘the Jews’ and onto the sins of Christian believers." For example (scroll down): after the gospel passage in John 18:22 in which one of the High Priest’s servants strikes Jesus, the chorus interrupts the gospel narrative to ask, "Who has hit you like that, my savior?" The chorus then answers "I, I and my sins … have brought down on you this misery and this woeful host of torments." And later, after Jesus dies on the cross, the bass soloist interrupts the narrative to ask Jesus directly (scroll way down): "am I released from death? Can I gain the heavenly kingdom through your suffering and death? Is the whole world redeemed?" He continues, "Because of your pain, You cannot speak, but bow your head and silently say: ‘Yes.’"
Speaking only for myself, I find performing or hearing the St. John Passion to be uncomfortable at best. I can appreciate that Bach seems to shift responsibility from "the Jews" to all humans tainted by original sin, and yet, hearing Bach’s glorious music depict "the Jews" screaming for Jesus’s crucifixion is still tough to take. And as noted above, some of Bach’s other texts carry a distinctly anti-semitic tone by which he doesn’t seem to have been terribly bothered (otherwise he presumably wouldn’t have used them). Yet the St. John Passion is undeniably a great musical masterpiece, and it does seem to carry a message more universal than that of the gospel upon which it is based.
Many folks who are much more learned than I have offered their views on how to deal with the St. John Passion. They’re very interesting and well worth reading. And at the end of the day, it’s impossible to come to a conclusion about this piece until you’ve experienced it live (a recording isn’t the same). So I hope that you’ll come hear our performance, or someone else’s, and that you’ll tell us what you think.
As a lifelong atheist raised in the Baptist church, I have always lamented the fact that much of the finest choral music is religious. But I listen to it anyway, since it is so exquisitely beautiful and so ubiquitous. And honestly, quite often I deliberately don’t explore the meaning behind the lyrics, which seldom are in English and so can be observed as sound without literal meaning.
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p>But now that you’ve revealed the darker side of this particular piece, I can see how it would be difficult to participate in its performance. I suppose that, like you, I would have to view it as a historical set piece to be able to get through it. That works, as long as we are far enough along as a society that such historical set pieces don’t fan any lingering embers of hate. Those embers still exist, of course, but these days I think they’re more likely to flare up in response to blasts of heavy metal rather than to Bach.
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p>I always marvel at people who want to blame “the Jews” for the crucifixion of Jesus. After all, it was god’s plan that Jesus be tortured and executed. He used “the Jews” just like he used Judas to accomplish this goal. If one blames the actors in the play, one must also blame god the playwright for forcing them into those rolls. Funny, isn’t it, how no one is willing to blame the one who pulled all the strings?
hypocrites have used the gospels of christ and his apostles to fuel and rationalize their bigotry against others for two centuries now.
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p>bible scripture was used to stoke up wars against oriental cultures around the world. wrongly and blasphemously. it was used to demonize blacks during the time of american slavery and jim crow. wrongly and blasphemously. and it is being used today against gays and lesbians. wrongly and blasphemously.
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p>true christians clearly recognize, and deeply feel, that jesus was killed by men, not ‘jews’. men who were jews perhaps, just like jesus himself and pretty much everyone else on the scene. the act against the prophet was made by man. not any subset of man.
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p>the book of john is not a manifesto of anti-semitism. even though surely, some cretin or hypocrite at one time or another has tried to make it such. and you are not contributing to that by reciting words from the texts. you can relax. we are better than that. really, we are.
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p>the season of easter for christians is a time of hope. not a time for blaming jews. please . . relax. you don’t need to read the list of atrocities commited by hypocrites through the ages. we all know them.
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p>enjoy performing this wonderful musical work. fuzz over the words, if that makes you feel more comfortable. but really, you’re not betraying the jewish people and faith, or legitimizing the evil deeds of two thousand years of hypocrites and bigots and blasphemers by your singing.
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p>it’s music. it’s art. it’s not an anti-semitic minstrel show. enjoy your performance, as others will. relax, and have a great time.
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Lots of others disagree. But to each his own.
Yes, John comes across as the most anti-Semitic of the four Gospels, but it was written at a time of great strife between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Also the Jewish Wars in which Rome ultimately destroyed the Temple was a fresh memory. The particular Christian community for which this Gospel was written was actively trying to convince the Romans that they were not part of the people they, the Romans were out to destroy. They also tried to incur Roman favor by portraying Pilate as an innocent bystander and the “good guy” in this act. That’s historically a lot of baloney since Pilate was known to be so cruel even by the standards of the time that he was later recalled to Rome. Crucifixion was of course the Roman death penalty. To the extent Jews turned on Jesus they were provoked by their native leadership who were in cahoots with the Romans and were quite nervous to say the least at the following He was attracting. Despite saying, “Let His blood be upon us and our children,” no rational person should use that as an excuse to hate Jews. I too enjoy sacred music, but since nobody is forced to either participate or attend this concert I do not think forcing one’s religious beliefs on others is really an issue.
Some (hopefully) cogent comments on St. John’s Gospel:
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p>First, John was very much a Jew. In another (tomorrow) response, I will get into the wherefores of his verbal lambaste of “The Jews.” but for now, let’s have a look at his writing.
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p>John wrote for two purposes, other than to tell the story of Christ’s purpose for becoming incarnate. The first, he reveals to us in 20:31, where he writes, “These are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His Name.”
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p>As for the second, one must study the Gospel a little to understand the revelation. Harkening back to the beginning of the Gospel, John succintly and quite directly states that Christ is, indeed, God (Jn 1:1-2). Further, he illustrates this again in his quote of Jesus, in 8:58, where He decrees, “I AM!” This expression would only have meant to “the Jews” that He was indeed the Messiah, sent as a part of God, by God, which royally angered them.
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p>It was thus John’s purpose to leave no doubt that Christ, being the Son of God, was indeed a part of the Triumvirate, that is, the “Three in One” Godhead.
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p>But in this “second purpose,” note that John constantly HAMMERS at Gnosticism throughout the Gospel. While numerous contemporary sources equate John with Gnosticism, the reality is that John was quite disturbed by Gnosticism, and many of his comments in his Gospel so reflect.
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p>John’s battle with Gnosticism revolves around the very orthodoxy of Christianity, that is, whether the Church of Christ on earth is the operative and correct administrator for correct Christian behavior, or whether the internal “feelings” of the individual are the prescribed dictate for a relationship with The Almighty. The Gnostics subscribe to the latter; reformed Christianity subscribes to the former. It was John’s purpose, both in his Gospel, and in his other writings, to slap Gnosticism around, as it was a prevalent practice in his day. He was convinced by his intimate relationship with Christ that it was most inappropriate for either Jew, or (later) Christian, as a practical avenue to salvation and intimacy with God.
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p>More to come. For now, a really GREAT summation of Gnosticism can be found here:
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p> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…
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p>Best,
Chuck