St. Matthew Passion (Schütz)

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The St. Matthew Passion ( SWV 479) , original title Historia of the Passion and Death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ based on the Evangelist Matthew (Chapters 26 and 27), is a spiritual choral work by Heinrich Schütz . It was written in 1666, when Schütz was also composing the St. John Passion , and is in G- Doric . As a Passion , the work sets the biblical Passion text to music and represents an early climax in this genre, as Kurt Gudewill states in the preface to the Complete Edition: “The development of the Passion, which is based exclusively on the Bible, culminates in the histories of Heinrich Schütz; for a long time it was locked. "

occupation

The line-up (mixed choir / SATB) is, unlike in the famous Bach Passions , purely vocal. The following roles occur in the work:

role Pitch Text examples from the St. Matthew Passion by Heinrich Schütz
Christ bass Take, eat, this is my body!
evangelist tenor Judas, who betrayed him, answered
Judas Altus Is it me, Rabbi?
Caiphas bass Don't you answer anything about what these testify against you?
Peter tenor I do not know the person!
Ancilla I (maid I) soprano And you, you were also with the Jesus from Galilee!
Ancilla II (maid II) soprano He was also with Jesus from Nazareth!
Pilate tenor Are you king of the Jews?
Pilati woman Altus You have nothing to do with this righteous man.
Two false witnesses Tenors I and II together He said: I can demolish the temple of God ...

The choir is usually made up of four voices with treble, alto, tenor and bass. But when the high priests are in the foreground, Schütz changes to the darker line-up alto - tenor - tenor - bass . "Dark" scenes are effectively enhanced by a deeper and darker sounding choir sound.

Performance and liturgical place

First performance in 1666

The St. Matthew Passion had its permanent place in the service of the Dresden Castle Church. So it was created for liturgical use . Musical instruments were not allowed to be used in the church during the Passion, as in many places in Dresden. Even the figured bass is excluded from Schütz's St. Matthew Passion. The Passion was originally intended for Judica Sunday , the 5th Sunday of Passion time.

Quirks

When Heinrich Schütz writes the work in G-Dorian and thus leaves the traditional f-mode as the passion note, he is breaking a tradition that he had upheld in his St. Luke Passion .

Otto Brodde interprets this as follows: “The Evangelist Matthew presents Christ as the creator of the new community, a fundamental and therefore generally binding statement for Christians. In order to symbolize such a fundamental general obligation, Schütz uses the universal key group, which in the Gabrieli School symbolically symbolizes the middle of all possible affects ”.

In addition to the usual introit, “The suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, as described by the Holy Evangelist Matthew”, Schütz added a final chorus lasting around two and a half minutes, “ Glory to you, Christ ”.

Rediscovery

The work was not performed for over 200 years and only performed again in Bonn at the suggestion of Friedrich Spitta by Arnold Mendelssohn in the early 1880s . In the original version, i.e. a cappella , this passion was heard again for the first time in 1929 at the second Heinrich Schütz Festival in Celle .

source

The calligraphically appealing handwriting of Johann Zacharias Grundig is considered the source .

literature

  • Friedrich Spitta: The Passions according to the four Evangelists by Heinrich Schutz , 1886, new edition: Kessinger Publishing (2010), ISBN 9781168863591

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthew Passion according to the complete edition: Heinrich Schütz, New Edition of all Works, Vol. 2, ed. v. Bruno Grusnick , Kassel 1957
  2. ↑ Otto Brodde, Heinrich Schütz. Weg und Werk, Kassel 1979, 2nd edition, p. 266, ISBN 3761801599
  3. ^ Hans Eppstein, Heinrich Schütz , Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1975, p. 150, ISBN 377510190X
  4. ^ Introduction by Kurt Gudewill in the complete edition: Heinrich Schütz, New edition of all works, vol. 2, ed. v. Bruno Grusnick, Kassel 1957, no page number
  5. ↑ Otto Brodde, Heinrich Schütz. Weg and Werk , Kassel 1979, 2nd edition, p. 263; also Siegfried Schmalzriedt , Heinrich Schütz and other contemporary musicians in the teaching of Giovanni Gabrieli. Studies on their madrigals , dissertation Tübingen 1969, Neuhausen Stuttgart 1972, p. 81 f
  6. ^ Fritz Schmidt's foreword from 1929, printed in the St. Matthew Passion after the complete edition: Heinrich Schütz, New edition of all works, vol. 2, ed. v. Bruno Grusnick, Kassel 1957, p. 107
  7. ^ Fritz Schmidt's foreword from 1929, printed in the St. Matthew Passion after the complete edition: Heinrich Schütz, New edition of all works, vol. 2, ed. v. Bruno Grusnick, Kassel 1957, p. 107

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