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Matthew Passion
Author(s): Michael Marissen
Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 4 (Winter, 1993), pp. 718-726
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/742355
Accessed: 18-11-2016 16:17 UTC
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Musical Quarterly
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718
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ably in the opening movement, a powerful triple-choir lament combining a chorus representing the Daughters of Zion, a chorus of the
Faithful, and an extra soprano line for the traditional German Agnus
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ally performed. This question has not been given much attention in
the secondary literature; writers almost invariably report that Mendelssohn's cuts were a matter of taste, or that they were made for
purposes of greater dramatic concision. 15 These conclusions, however,
do not fully acount for Mendelssohn's performance materials. Once
again, theological considerations played a central role.
What changes did Mendelssohn make? He cut all the solo arias
but two, about a half dozen chorales, and many small snippets from
within the recitatives (most of these cuts are from part 2 of the passion, which involves the arrest and trial scene). Mendelssohn probably
did cut the arias partly for aesthetic or dramatic reasons, but he may
also have had religious motivations for doing so. These motivations
were probably influenced by the religious philosophy of Friedrich
Schleiermacher, of whose circle in Berlin Mendelssohn was a member. 16 In particular, an essential element of Schleiermacher's thought
is his Christocentric, communal theology (Gemeindetheologie). Schleiermacher stressed the second article of the creed ("I believe in God the
son") in contrast to Enlightenment deists, who emphasized the first
("God the father"). He also placed less emphasis on religious individualism and more on the (Protestant) congregation. The influence of
Schleiermacher's ideas may help to explain why Mendelssohn keeps
most of the verbatim biblical account (the recitatives) and the group
responses (the chorales), but was less interested in the individual's
responses (the arias). Schleiermacher was present at the first of Mendelssohn's performances of the Matthew Passion, but no record of what
he thought of it survives among his published or unpublished writings. 17
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Mendelssohn's cut of all the solo arias but two, some of the biblical account, and some of the chorales leaves us to consider how to
account for these apparently diverse choices. Even if Mendelssohn
considered Bach's Matthew Passion too long for a performance, one
would still assume that his cuts would not have been made arbitrarily.
In fact, nearly all of the cuts are in texts that ran the risk of being
perceived as anti-Jewish.
Consider first the cuts from the recitatives, the verbatim biblical
account. These cuts often involve only a few seconds of music and
therefore must have been textually-motivated. In recitative 33
(39),22--the Jewish legal proceeding before Christ is turned over to
the Roman authorities--Mendelssohn cut the phrase "and though
many witnesses [i.e., Jewish witnesses] came forth, all testimony was
found false" and resumes with "two witnesses came forth and said, 'he
claims he can break down God's temple and rebuild it in three
days' "23 (emphasis added). In recitative 43 (52), he cut the betrayal
of Christ for thirty pieces of silver. Also within 43 (52), he cut Pontius Pilate's question to Christ, "Don't you hear how severely they
[Jews] complain against you?" In 45a (54), he cut the evangelist's
saying "that they had turned [Christ] over out of envy [or malice; aus
Neid]." All of these cuts remove from the text negative character
depictions of Jews.
Toward the end of the biblical account there are two other recitative cuts, and these concern the role of women as witnesses to the
events surrounding Christ's crucifixion and burial. Feminist biblical
criticism has rightly focused much of its attention on this part of the
Bible: in light of the fact that women in New Testament times were
not considered to be legally binding witnesses, the gospel stories
appear to be advocating a new status for women, one that the early
Christian church (and the church altogether, until fairly recently) did
not recognize. Mendelssohn apparently believed that the several parts
of Matthew's narrative that mention women "didn't belong to the
passion story."24 In 63c (73), immediately after the tearing of the
temple veil (when it becomes clear that Christ was the Son of God),
Mendelssohn cut the text, "and there were many women there" and
resumes at "in the evening, however, there came a rich man." In 66a
(76) he cut a short sentence on the presence of the two Marys at
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cation to skip over the material in between) and by a large mark crossing it out in Mendelssohn's score, and one wonders if he was
particularly vehement about the exclusion. Apparently Mendelssohn's
attitude toward women was largely of the conventional patriarchal sort
(consider, for example, his ambivalent support for his sister Fanny's
compositional career, which is well documented in the Mendelssohn
literature, and his disdain for "unfeminine" women in Berlin intellectual circles).25 This attitude may also explain some of Mendelssohn's
cuts from the Matthew Passion.
chorale cuts, 40 (48), 44 (53), and 46 (55), that are not explained by
this rationale.
Finally, Mendelssohn did retain only two solo arias in his perfor-
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1967). For a useful summary of Geck's findings, see Gottfried Eberle, 200 Jahre SingAkademie zu Berlin: Ein Kunstverein fiir die heilige Musik (Berlin: Nicolai, 1991),
87-99. See also Walter Blankenburg, "Die Berliner Wiederaufftihrung der MatthiusPassion-Denkmal oder Programm?" in Bachtage Berlin: Vortrdge 1970 bis 1981, ed.
Gtnther Wagner (Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Hinssler, 1985), 23-31; and Ingeborg Drewitz, "Marz 1829-oder die Sakularisierung der Kdtnste," Wagner, 201-10; and Arno
Forchert, "Von Bach zu Mendelssohn," Wagner, 211-23.
.2. See Georg Schdtnemann, "Die Bachpflege der Berliner Singakademie," BachJahrbuch 25 (1928): 138-71; Werner Neumann, "Welcher Handschriften J. S.
Bachscher Werke besaf die Berliner Singakademie?" in Hans Albrecht in Memoriam,
ed. Wilfried Brennecke and Hans Haase (Kassel: Birenreiter, 1962), 136-42; and
Friedrich Welter, "Die Musikbibliothek der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin," in SingAkademie zu Berlin: Festschrift zu 175 jahrigen Bestehen, ed. Werner Bollert (Berlin:
4. ". . . daB es ein Kom6diant und ein Judenjunge sein miissen, die den Leuten die
gr6bte christliche Musik wiederbringen" (Geck, 32).
5. His friend Hauser appears to have owned a partial copy of Bach's Mark Passion
(only the libretto to this work is extant). It is unknown, however, when Hauser copied this score. See Andreas Gl6ckner, "Johann Sebastian Bachs Auffiihrungen zeitgen6ssicher Passionsmusiken," Bach-Jahrbuch 63 (1977): 75-119, at 90-91.
6. A copy of this Luke Passion came into the Vof Collection in Berlin sometime
before 1836; see Hans-Joachim Schulze, Studien zur Bach-iJberlieferung im 18. Jahrhun-
dert (Leipzig: Peters, 1983), 95. On Mendelssohn's connections to the Vof Collection, see Susanna Grofmann-Vendrey, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy und die Musik der
Vergangenheit (Regensburg: Bosse, 1969), 214. In a letter of 1833 to Hauser, who had
recently acquired Bach's own (unattributed) copy of this Luke Passion setting, Men-
delssohn casts grave doubts on the idea that it was composed by Bach; see GrofmannVendrey, 209-10. Current Bach research also doubts Bach's authorship. The leading
Bach scholar of the nineteenth century, Philipp Spitta, however, considered the Luke
Passion genuine, and even highly superior, music of Bach's; see Johann Sebastian Bach,
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between Zelter and his composition student Mendelssohn. For a corrected account of
the source materials, see Alfred Dirr, ed., Johann Sebastian Bach, Neue Ausgabe samtlicher Werke, II5: Matthaus-Passion, Markus-Passion, Kritischer Bericht (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1974), 94-96. In his memoirs (1866) Mendelssohn's theologian friend Julius
Schubring indicates that Mendelssohn's score had been copied from Zelter's materials
13. See especially numbers 1, 10 (16), 19 (25), 29 (35), 39 (47), and 67 (77); the
numbers in parentheses are those of the original edition of the Thematischsystematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach-Bach-
gen mit einer Andacht, als ob sie in der Kirche wiren. . . . Das Publicum .
fiihlten daB hier nicht Musik und Concert, sondern Religion und Kirche sei"
(GroBmann-Vendrey, 49; only the first part of this quotation appears in Geck, 42).
"Es ist nichts ConcertmiBiges darin" (GroBmann-Vendrey, 90).
15. Only Geck (36-37) and Barbara David Wright ("Johann Sebastian Bach's
'Matthius-Passion': A Performance History 1829-1854" [Ph.D. diss., University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1983], 253-68) specify what Mendelssohn's cuts were, but
they too suggest that the cuts reflected problems of dramatic continuity and taste.
16. Wulf Konold, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy und seine Zeit (Regensburg: Laaber,
1984), 16. For an introduction to Schleiermacher, see Martin Redeker, Schleiermacher:
Life and Thought, trans. John Wallhausser (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973).
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19. "Auch vom Evangelium muBte fortbleiben, was nicht zur Passionserzihlung
geh6rt" (Geck, 32).
20. "Felix ging die ganze Partitur durch, machte einige wenige zweckmiBige Abktirzungen" (Geck, 32).
21. "Oft genug waren wir zwiespiltiger Ansicht, denn es gait eine Gewissensaufgabe;
aber was wir schlieBlich festgestellt, scheint doch das Rechte gewesen zu sein, da es
spiterhin bei den meisten Auffiihrungen angenommen waren" (Geck, 32).
22. Regarding the numbering systems, see note 13 above.
23. Geck erroneously reports that Mendelssohn cut the second half of the verse here
25. See Nancy B. Reich, "The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel," in Todd, 86-99.
When discussing with Mendelssohn the possibility of a performance of the Matthew
Passion, Zelter threw in all sorts of objections, including "[on the governing board of
the Singakademie] there are many people and many tastes and inclinations-and
there will also be womanish minds to deal with, you know!" ["da sind gar viele K6pfe
und viele Sinne-und Weiberk6pfe sind auch dabei, ja!"] (Geck, 29). Was this simply Zelter's way of thinking, or did he also believe that this kind of reasoning would
appeal to Mendelssohn?
26. While some blame Jews ultimately for Christ's being "scandalously mauled," it
should be pointed out that at this point in the passion narrative it is not the crowd
(Jews) who abuse Christ, but the soldiers (Romans).
27. Mendelssohn, in a letter of 1835 to Bruno Bauer, compared his own compositional ambitions to the "edification" generated by Bach's passion music; see Leon
Botstein, "The Aesthetics of Assimilation and Affirmation: Reconstructing the Career
of Felix Mendelssohn," in Todd, 5-42, at 24. A sense of the depth in meaning of
Bach's "Erbarme dich" aria is powerfully captured for modern audiences through its
use at the opening and close of Andrei Tarkovskij's film Offret Sacrificatio (The Sacrifice), 1986.
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