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pendent part is that the four vocal parts for the new chorales do not
work on their own. Something is missing from the texture in almost
every measure, and it is a good bet that the missing notes were in a
now-lost fifth part.
If we did have the 1726 instrumental parts we would most likely dis-
cover other ways in which Bach accommodated the passion to Leipzig
practice. One concerns the use of oboes. We can recall that one aria in
the Weimar-era version called for solo oboe and that the oboe line, no-
tated in the Violin 1 part, was almost certainly played by the first violin-
ist. This would have been most unusual for Bach in Leipzig, where he
apparently always relied on distinct oboe players, and we can guess that
Bach prepared a separate part for an oboist in this aria. Further, given the
practice of using oboes throughout his large concerted works, we have
to wonder whether Bach found a larger role for oboes throughout the
St. Mark Passion, perhaps doubling strings or voices in tutti movements.
This would represent an expansion of the work s instrumentation in
keeping with usual local practice. We can also guess that Bach used his
typical Leipzig basso continuo complement organ, cello, and violone
(double bass) representing another accommodation of the work.
Given that few movements in the Weimar-era passion changed in
1726, the main issue in the preparation of vocal parts in that year seems
90 Passions in Performance
to have been the distribution of material among the singers. Although
Bach s four Weimar-era vocal parts contained all the music and suf-
ficed for a performance, the new parts prepared for Leipzig extracted
the words of some of the individuals who speak in the drama. As in the
earlier parts, the Soprano part includes (in addition to all the arias, cho-
ruses, and chorales in its range) the music for the Maid; the bass part
likewise includes the music for Jesus. In the alto, the Centurion s and
the Soldier s music are present, as they were in the Weimar-era parts,
but the lines for Judas and Caiphas are omitted. No part survives con-
taining these roles, but to judge from Bach s practice in his own pas-
sions there was almost certainly a brief part containing them, meant to
be used by an alto who was not the principal singer in the ensemble.
One reason to suspect that this happened with the alto part is that
Bach did the same thing with the tenor. Most of the tenor-range music
is in a new part for Leipzig headed Tenore Evang. This part is much
like the Weimar-era one but lacks the music for two dramatic char-
acters; this is found in a separate part headed Tenore Petrus et
Pilatus. Bach entrusted the music for these two roles to a distinct
singer not the principal tenor who sang the Evangelist s words. The
redistribution of vocal roles was yet another reason to copy new parts
in 1726 and represents an adaptation of the piece to Leipzig practice,
where a relative abundance of singers made this kind of realization
possible. It may also suggest a somewhat more dramatic conception
of the passion setting.
One startling feature of the brief tenor part containing the music for
Peter and Pilate is the inclusion as well of a solo aria, Wein, ach wein
itzt um die Wette, heard after Peter s betrayal. We are presumably to
understand that this aria is sung by Peter, as was often the case at this
moment in German passion settings, but this was unusual for Bach, who
essentially never entrusted a solo aria to anyone other than his four
principal singers in a vocal work. Once again, Leipzig s richer resources
and Bach s apparent interest in a more dramatic presentation of the work
presumably suggested the assignment of this aria to a singer other than
the principal tenor and to a dramatic character himself. (These issues
are treated in more detail in chapter 2.)
We know from surviving performing material that Bach employed
vocal ripienists additional singers who reinforced the principal vo-
calists in choruses in the St. John Passion in 1724 and again in 1725,
and effectively in the St. Matthew Passion performed in 1727 and 1729.
The relatively rich availability of singers on Good Friday apparently
made it Bach s usual practice to use vocal ripienists in passion perfor-
A St. Mark Passion Makes the Rounds 91
mances in his first decade in Leipzig. We can guess that he did so in the
1726 presentation of the St. Mark Passion as well, though no ripieno
vocal parts survive for this work. Their addition (compared to his
Weimar-era version) would represent yet another adaptation of the piece
to Leipzig practice.
Except for its division into two parts to accommodate the sermon, Bach s
1726 Leipzig version of the St. Mark Passion closely resembled his ear-
lier one and (presumably) the state in which he encountered it. There
is no sign of the kind of expansion and substitution of new arias seen in
the Göttingen and Berlin pastiches. But when Bach returned to the work
in the 1740s (perhaps after several performances of essentially the ver-
sion he had prepared in 1726), he made more substantial changes that
resemble those in the Göttingen and Berlin scores. Bach replaced four
numbers in the St. Mark Passion with new arias and expanded the work
by inserting three more in new places.
(A word is in order here about the evidence for this third version by
Bach, known only from a very few performing parts prepared in the
1740s. There is reason to think that these are escapees from a full set of
parts that has survived into the twenty-first century but that is closely
held in private hands. I also suspect that this set of parts incorporated
much of the material Bach had prepared in 1726, particularly the in-
strumental parts. This would explain why only the cast-aside vocal parts
remain from that set. One of the 1740s parts that is known is a basso
continuo part for harpsichord; this is a great help because of course it
includes every movement, giving us a very good idea of the shape of
the new version and especially the new pieces added to it.)
All seven of the new movements came from the setting by Georg
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