An unknown ‘fifth evangelist’
But who is this unknown fifth evangelist? We know that Barthold Heinrich Brockes lived from 1680 to 1747. He grew up in a well-to-do environment and became a lawyer after studying, among other places, in Leiden. Gifted with a talent for languages, he spent time abroad on diplomatic missions; from 1720 onwards, he served as a senator in Hamburg.
Brockes’ credo? Poetry should not be empty wordplay, but something that could also offer insight: “Thus I wrote the first Passion oratorio, which was later translated into several languages. I had it performed ceremonially in my own house.” And indeed: in 1712, Brockes published his Passion under the title Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus. Reinhard Keiser was the first to set this text to music. The performance Brockes refers to did indeed take place in his home — and on quite a scale: more than five hundred people were present.
With this performance, Brockes and Keiser offered the people of Hamburg, during the Passion season (when the opera houses were closed), an erlaubte Belustigung — a permitted form of entertainment — while at the same time providing Erbauung, spiritual edification. And it made a strong impression: within the following fifteen years, the text was reprinted no fewer than thirty times. After the first performance in 1712, the author had already prepared a revised version a year later. This second edition was followed by many further revisions, and even a Swedish translation appeared.
Pietism
Brockes’ Passion not only responded to the more theatrical tastes of the Hamburg public (and provided income for opera singers who were out of work at the time), it also aligned with Pietism. The focus was not so much on orthodoxy; Pietists were more concerned with the personal relationship between the believer and Scripture. It was Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705) who, in his Pia desideria (1675), sought to combine the Lutheran emphasis on the Bible with a more personal Christian life.
Of course, Spener was not the first to promote such ideas. The Devotio Moderna of Geert Grote (1340–1384) had already advocated a personal religious life devoted to Christ. In music, this led to the emergence of what is known as the Passion oratorio, as a counterpart to the oratorio Passion. While the distinction is not always clear-cut, one could say that the oratorio Passion adhered more strictly to the Gospel texts, whereas the Passion oratorio focused more on the emotional response of the believer, and could therefore be more theatrical.
Different musical settings
Brockes was clearly well connected in the musical world. He knew Georg Friedrich Handel, maintained contacts with Georg Philipp Telemann (and lobbied for Telemann’s appointment in Hamburg), and was also a friend of the opera composer Reinhard Keiser.
Many musicians were inspired by Brockes’ text. Among them was Telemann, who performed his setting of the Brockes Passion as early as 1716 in Frankfurt am Main. Johann Mattheson, Director Musices at Hamburg Cathedral, programmed his own setting there on Palm Sunday in 1718. Among the other composers who set the Brockes Passion to music are Johann Friedrich Fasch (1722–23), Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1725), Johann Balthasar Christian Freislich, Jacob Schuback and Johann Caspar Bachofen (all in the 1750s).
Handel applying in Hamburg?
Georg Friedrich Handel set more than a hundred passages from Brockes’ extensive libretto to music. His version was first performed on 23 March 1719 in Hamburg. He made full use of the dramatic possibilities of Brockes’ text, for example in the arias of the Daughter of Zion; her rage aria Was Bärentatzen would not be out of place in an opera.
It is striking that Handel used a German libretto, as he was based in England at the time and would have had less need for a German-language Passion. The exact dating of the music remains unclear. Johann Mattheson recounts how Handel, from London in 1716, “sent a setting of Brockes’ text here by post, in an extraordinarily densely written score.” Was it an application for a position in Hamburg — perhaps for the cantor’s post, combined with the directorship of the Gänsemarkt Opera? Mattheson seems to suggest as much in his Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte (1740).
In any case, Mattheson appears to have been the driving force behind the musical settings of Brockes’ text. Their enthusiastic reception turned them into a recurring phenomenon: in 1719, 1720, 1721 and 1723, Mattheson even organised a kind of “Brockes festival”, presenting the settings by Keiser, Telemann, himself and Handel on successive days.
Reactions
The large number of composers who engaged with Brockes’ text reflects its popularity. Not everyone, however, was equally positive about the results. A century after Handel’s setting, publisher Friedrich Chrysander wrote: “Brockes’ work is tasteless and meaningless, full of exaggerated or unworthy imagery; yet it possesses a strong sensual force that imposes itself like a theatrical effect and overwhelms the listener.”
The 19th-century English musicologist Richard Alexander Streatfeild considered the Passion one of Handel’s least satisfying works, as it gives the impression of someone working with awkward material. Much later, in 1980, Winton Dean wrote in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians that Handel’s reflective arias are not always convincing, even if the dramatic episodes are highly praised. According to Dean, in this work Handel comes closest to challenging Bach, but ultimately withdraws somewhat uneasily.
At the same time, Handel himself reused several passages in Esther, Deborah, Athalia and a version of Acis and Galatea, while Bach, in 1747, assembled a Passion pasticcio that included music from a Markus-Passion attributed to Reinhard Keiser, as well as seven arias from Handel’s Brockes Passion.
Edition
As no autograph manuscript by Handel has survived, we must rely on other copies, which differ quite significantly from one another — a real challenge for both musicologists and performers. In 2008, an Urtext edition was published as part of the Stuttgart Handel Edition, prepared by the German musicologist Andreas Traub. This edition is primarily based on the copy made by Johann Sebastian Bach and forms the basis for today’s performance.
The influence of Handel’s Brockes Passion on Bach can be heard in the aria Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen. For Bach, the way Handel sets the interjections Wohin in the part of the Faithful Soul proved an inspiring model when, a few years later, he set the same text in his St John Passion.
