John Stewart Bach Analysis

Bach’s masterpiece displays not only his mastery of the orchestra and choir, but also showcases his intense belief in Christ as savior of the world. Bach was a devout Christian throughout all of his life and this shines through in his work, especially in his more spiritual compositions. In his oratorio three especially distinct features come to the foreground that help to build up its Christianity: one, word-painting, especially in the more intense movements; two, by making the chorus, along with the instruments, more unified or chaotic Bach highlights the calamity or confusion that is happening; third, at the end of the work Bach descends into deeper, darker music that, even without the vocal accompaniment, conveys the gravity of what has

Bach shows us his mastery of this technique by painting in notes the conversation between Jesus and His disciples during the Passover feast. Jesus and the disciples have been together, through thick and thin, for several months; this is a very close-knit community where each is devoted to following the Master. When Jesus speaks during the Passover Bach accompanies the words with a very steady, solid baseline. But when Jesus speaks the words “Verily I say to you, one among you shall this night betray Me.”, the accompanying instruments show a burst of chaos. Bach captures in one measure what the reaction of the twelve would have been like after they heard these words; these words would have rocked their world for an instant, temporarily causing them to doubt and accuse themselves. Bach also captures this in the following movement by having his chorus sing at odd intervals and over each other. Before he moves on to the last supper, Bach includes one last poignant measure. In this measure Judas asks Jesus if he is the one to betray Him. When Jesus says yes the instruments take a deep plunge into a darker, crushing theme. Bach conveys not only the extreme gravity of the statement but also builds upon, in an audible way, the statement that such a man should never have been

This theme makes its first impact during movement sixty-nine, when the alto solo laments the fact that Golgotha, “unhappy Golgotha” , had to be the place where “The Lord of Glory here must suffer pain and agony” . The soloist is not lamenting the fact that Golgotha is the place where Jesus must die, but the fact that Jesus must die on Earth at all, regardless of place. It is here that Bach begins to introduce us to the more mournful, melancholic, and deeply depressing part of the score. This theme is further developed by two closely related movements: movement seventy-one and seventy-three. The first tells us of the death of Our Lord on the cross where Bach relays the suffering in such a complex way that each layer must be examined on its own. First, we have the evangelist narrating the scene in a very low, steady and soft way followed up by Jesus crying out to the Father. Second, we have the Chorus interjecting to try to see if He will perform one last miracle and they do this in a bright, almost hopeful or gleeful way. Third, after the evangelist sings that Jesus “cried again aloud, yielded up the Ghost.” The music slowly dies down, as if to signify that what has happened is so mournful that no amount of music can ever convey what has just happened here and all it can do is offer a few chords as consolation. But, however, when we put these three