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Barthold Heinrich Brockes
Brockes-Passion |
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Text of Brockes-Passion |
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The original text by Barthold Heinrich Brockes titled as Der für die Sünden der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus ((Jesus who Suffered and Died for the Sins of the World)) was printed in connection with the private Hamburg premiere in 1712 probably had only limited distribution. But the revised version dating from 1713, with some additional texts, was published in 1715 as a supplement to B.H. Brockes’ German translation of Giambattista Marino’s Slaughter of the Innocents. That volume was frequently reprinted in the first half of the 18th century and appears to have been in wide circulation. 3
See: Complete German text of the 1712 version of Brockes-Passion (printed in 1715).
Below are presented all known musical settings of Brockes-Passion and all known performances of the various settings up to 1750.
Any corrections/additions to these two lists would be most welcome. |
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Musical Settings of Brockes-Passion |
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Composer |
Year |
Place |
Work/Recordings |
Comments |
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Reinhard Keiser |
1712 |
Hamburg |
Brockes-Passion |
1st Brockes-Passion oratorio. All 117 mvts. |
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Reinhard Keiser |
1714 |
Hamburg |
Excerpts of Brockes-Passion reduced for voice & continuo |
Published by the composer himself |
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Georg Friedrich Handel |
1715 / 1716 |
London |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
Only 106 mvts. |
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Georg Philipp Telemann |
1716 |
Hamburg |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
All 117 mvts. |
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Johann Mattheson |
1719 |
Hamburg |
Brockes-Passion |
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Johann Balthasar Christian Freißlich |
1721-1726 |
Danzig |
Brockes-Passion 3 |
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Georg Philipp Telemann |
1722 |
Hamburg |
Matthäus-Passion TWV 5.7 (Wenn meine Sünd mich kränken) 7 |
Uses 8 free poetic texts, all drawn from Brockes Passion; music lo+st |
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Georg Philipp Telemann |
1722 |
Hamburg |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
Revised version |
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Georg Philipp Telemann |
1723 |
Hamburg |
Markus-Passion TWV 5.8 (Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld) 7 |
Uses 13 free poetic texts, 9 from Brockes Passion; music lost |
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Johann Friedrich Fasch |
1723 / 1717-1719 / c1730 |
Zerbst / Greiz |
Brockes-Passion, FWV F:1 |
Only 30 mvts., with some alterations and additions |
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J.S. Bach |
1724 |
Leipzig |
Johannes-Passion BWV 245 |
1st version; uses Brockes’ text in Mvt. 7(11), Mvt. 19(31), Mvt. 20(32), Mvt. 24(48), Mvt. 32(60), Mvt. 34(62), partly Mvt. 35(63) & Mvt. 39(67) |
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Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel |
1725 |
Gotha |
Brockes-Passion |
Abridged version, with addtitions of 3 traditional chorales |
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J.S. Bach |
1725 |
Leipzig |
Johannes-Passion BWV 245 |
Revised (2nd version) |
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Christoph Gottlieb Fröber |
1729 |
Leipzig |
Brockes-Passion (not known whose music was heard) |
Considerably shortened, evidently omitting approximately half of the arias. |
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J.S. Bach |
c 1730 |
Leipzig |
Johannes-Passion BWV 245 |
Revised (3rd version) |
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J.S. Bach |
Late 1740's |
Leipzig |
Johannes-Passion BWV 245 |
Revised (4th version) |
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Paul Steiniger (Steininger) |
c 1750 |
Nürnberg |
Brockes-Passion 4 |
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Jacob Schuback |
c 1750 / 1755 |
Hamburg |
Brockes-Passion 4 9 |
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Johann Caspar Bachofen |
1759 |
Zürich |
Brockes-Passion 4 |
Printed posthumously |
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Performances of Brockes-Passion’s Musical Settings 1712-1750 |
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Date |
Place |
Composer |
Work |
Comments |
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Lenten Season 1712 |
Brockes home, Hamburg |
R. Keiser |
Brockes-Passion |
1st performance |
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Lenten Season 1713 |
Brockes home, Hamburg |
R. Keiser |
Brockes-Passion |
Adds Nos. 68-69, Faithful Soul recitative and aria; publisher Roger Brown |
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1716 |
Barfüßerkirche, Frankfurt am Main |
G.P. Telemann |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
1st performance |
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Mar 26, 1717 (Good Friday) |
Neukirche, Leipzig |
G.P. Telemann |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
1st Leipzig performance of a Passion oratorio, Gottfried Vogler, organist & music director |
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1717 or 1718 |
Hamburg & Augsburg (no date or venue) |
G.P. Telemann |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
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Apr 10, 1718 (Palm Sunday) |
Domkirche, Hamburg |
J. Mattheson |
Brockes-Passion |
1st performance |
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Mar 20, 1719 |
St. Marie-Magdalene Church, Hamburg |
J. Mattheson |
Brockes-Passion |
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Mar 23, 1719 or
April 3, 1719 |
Hamburg Cathedral
Reventher Dom, Hamburg |
G.F. Handel |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
1st performance |
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Holy Week 1719 |
Hamburg (no specific date or venue) |
R. Keiser |
Brockes-Passion |
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Apr 4, 1719 |
Reventher Dom, Hamburg |
G.P. Telemann |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
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Mar 21, 1720 |
Drillhaus, Hamburg |
G.P. Telemann |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
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Mar 20, 1721 |
Drillhaus, Hamburg |
G.F. Handel |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
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Apr 2, 1721 |
Reventher Dom, Hamburg |
R. Keiser |
Brockes-Passion |
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Mar 22, 26, 28 & 30, 1722 |
Hamburg (no venue cited) |
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G.F. Handel
R. Keiser
G.P. Telemann
J. Mattheson |
Omnibus Brockes Passion:
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48
Brockes-Passion
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1
Brockes-Passion |
Pasticcio:
15 movements
36 movements
60 movements
5 movements |
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Lenten Season, 1722 |
Hamburg (no date or venue cited) |
G.F. Handel |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
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Mar 26, 1723 (Good Friday) |
Lüneburg |
G.F. Handel |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
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Lenten Season 1723 |
Hamburg |
R. Keiser |
Brockes-Passion |
Possible |
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Lenten Season 1723 |
Hamburg |
G.P. Telemann |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
Possible |
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Lenten Season 1723 |
Hamburg |
G.F. Handel |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
Possible |
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Lenten Season 1723 |
Hamburg |
J. Mattheson |
Brockes-Passion |
Possible |
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1723 or
1717-1719 or
c1730 |
Zerbst
Greiz
? |
J.F. Fasch |
Brockes-Passion, FWV F:1 |
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Apr 5, 1724 |
Drillhaus, Hamburg |
G.F. Handel |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
. |
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Apr 7, 1724 (Good Friday) |
Nikolaikirche, Leipzig |
J.S. Bach |
Johannes-Passion BWV 245 |
1st performance (1st version) |
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Mar 28, 1725 |
Drillhaus, Hamburg |
G.P. Telemann |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
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Mar 30, 1725 (Good Friday) |
Thomaskirche, Leipzig |
J.S. Bach |
Johannes-Passion BWV 245 |
2nd performance (2nd version) |
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Lenten Season 1725 |
Castle Chapel at Friedenstein Castle, Gotha |
G.H. Stölzel |
Brockes-Passion |
1st performance |
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Holy Week 1727 |
Hamburg |
R. Keiser |
Brockes-Passion |
With Overture to Handel’s opera Admeto |
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1727 |
Sonderhausen |
R. Keiser |
Brockes-Passion |
Performed by J.B.C. Freißlich |
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Mar 25, 1728 |
Drillhaus, Hamburg |
G.P. Telemann |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
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Apr 15, 1729 (Good Friday) |
Neukirche, Leipzig |
Composer unknown |
? (no musical sources survive) |
Directed by C.G. Fröber |
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1729 |
Nuremberg |
Composer unknown |
? |
Presented in multiple parts spread over Lent |
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1730 |
Hamburg |
G.F. Handel
R. Keiser
G.P. Telemann
J. Mattheson |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48
Brockes-Passion
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1
Brockes-Passion |
Brockes text presented for artistic comparison in 4 different settings on a series of four evenings |
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Apr 11 (?), 1732 (Good Friday) |
Nikolaikirche, Leipzig |
J.S. Bach |
Johannes-Passion BWV 245 |
3rd performance (3rd version) |
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1st half of the 1730’s. |
Barfüßerkirche, Erfurt |
R. Keiser |
Brockes-Passion |
Performed by Johann Martin Klöppel |
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1735 (?) |
Sonderhausen |
G.H. Stölzel |
Brockes-Passion |
Several performances |
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Mar 27, 1739 (Good Friday) |
Nikolaikirche, Leipzig |
G.P. Telemann |
Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 |
Performed by J.S. Bach |
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Apr 8, 1746 (Good Friday) |
Leipzig |
G.F. Handel |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
Prepared for performance and performed by J.S. Bach. 2 stanzas of the original poem (beginning Mich vom Stricken meiner Sünden and Es muß meiner Sünden Flecken, respectively) have been replaced. |
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Apr 31, 1747 or Apr 12, 1748 (Good Friday) |
Thomaskirche, Leipzig |
G.F. Handel |
Pasticcio Passion, based on Markus-Passion by F.N. Brauns [previously attributed to R. Keiser] with insertion of 7 arias from Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
Performed by J.S. Bach |
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Aug 1748 - Oct 1749 (Good Friday) |
Leipzig |
G.F. Handel |
Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 |
2nd performance by J.S. Bach |
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Apr 4, 1749 (Good Friday) |
Nikolaikirche, Leipzig |
J.S. Bach |
Johannes-Passion BWV 245 |
4th performance (4th version) |
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Mar 27, 1750 (Good Friday) |
Leipzig |
J.S. Bach |
Johannes-Passion BWV 245 |
5th performance (4th version): |
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Comments: |
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G.P. Telemann’s Brockes-Passion, TWV 5:1 was heard in central and south Germany and in Riga, and figured in the concert repertory in Stockholm in the 1730’s, integrgrated into another pacticcio along with G.F. Handel’s setting.6 |
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Georg Friedrich Handel’s Brockes-Passion, HWV 48 was performed in Hamburg at least 6 times betweemn 1719 and 1724. 8 |
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Sources: |
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1. Christoph Wolff: Johann Sebastian Bach The Learned Musician (W.W. Norton & Company, 2000)
2. William Hoffman: Literary Origins of Bach’s St. John Passion: 1704-1717 (BCW, March 2010)
3. Daniel R. Melamed: Johann Sebastian Bach and Barthold Heinrich Brockes in Bach Perspectives 8, edited by Daniel R. Melamed (University of Illinois Press, 2011)
4. Liner notes by Axel Weidenfeld to the recording of Stölzel’s Brockes-Passion (CPO, 1998)
5. Liner notes by Nigel Springthorpe to the recording of Fasch’s Brockes-Passion (Naxos, 2007)
6. Liner notes by Carsten Lange to the recording of Telemann’s Brockes-Passion (Harmoniia Mundi, 2008)
7. Telemann Passion by Kim Patrick Clow in Wikipedia (accessed: January 26, 2011)
8. Howard E. Smither: A History of the Oratorio: The oratorio in the baroque era: Protestant Germany and England (University of North Carolina Press, 1979)
The main two sources are 2 & 3
9. Johannes Pausch, Edition Musiklandschaften Hamburg (January 24, 2023): There is a textbook of that passion in D-B, Mus. Tb 1346 that gives 1755 as year of performance and Hamburg as place. The composer is not named, but it says "Die Music ist neu dazu verfertiget worden" (music is newly composed). The score copy in the hand of Otto Ernst Gregorius Schieferlein (D-B Mus.ms. 20213) has several data entries from 1754. It was most probably only performed once. In contrast to Schuback's later oratorios, the style is quite much some Telemann late style epigonism, which is not the worst you can get. |
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Prepared by Aryeh Oron (January 2011 - January 2023)
Thanks to contributors: William Hoffman (January 2010 - January 2011), Prof. Daniel Melamed (January 2011); Johannes Pausch (Hamburg, Germany - January 2011, January 2023) |
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