Cast: 
Evangelist (tenor) 
Jesus (bass) 
Aria soloist (soprano) 
Aria soloist (tenor) 
Peter (tenor) 
Pilate (tenor) 
Maid (soprano) 
Evildoers (alto, tenor) 
Knights (bass, bass) 
Captain (tenor) 

Chorus: S-A-T-B 

Orchestra: 
1 flute, 1 oboe (doubles on oboe d'amore), strings, and continuo 

Program Notes by Martin Pearlman

In 1721, Telemann settled in Hamburg, where he became the director of music for the five principal churches in that city.  One of his obligations in that position was to set the passion story to music each year, cycling through the four evangelists one per year and then beginning the cycle over again.  In all, he composed some 46 passions, most of them at Hamburg.  Of these, 20 survive, including five St. Luke passions.  The unknown poet who provided Telemann with his libretto for this passion drew on the biblical text of St. Luke, 22:39-23:48 but contributed his own poetry for the arias, as well as for the contemplative chorus Ach, klage.  

Bach's two surviving passions from the 1720's, the only passions commonly performed today, come from a different world from this work by Telemann.  Although the two composers were exact contemporaries, Telemann's St. Luke Passion of 1744 was written nearly two decades after Bach's passions and originated in the religious and political atmosphere of the free city of Hamburg.  Its musical style and religious outlook are therefore quite different from Bach's and are, in some ways, more "modern."

By 1744, Enlightenment ideas were well known in Germany, as were the writings of English deists, who questioned many of the supernatural and miraculous aspects of religion.  Thus it is perhaps not surprising that Telemann emphasizes the emotional, human side of the drama.  Here Jesus sings a dramatic rage aria, something almost unimaginable in a Bach passion, and the lightness and worldliness of the first two soprano arias may be shocking to a listener who expects the tone of a Bach passion.  Bach's settings are darker and interrupt the narrative more frequently with contemplative chorales and choruses.

Unlike Bach, Telemann was also an opera composer.  He wrote numerous operas in Hamburg and even directed the city's opera company for a time.  We can only speculate about how much that influenced his settings of the passion drama, but we do know that female singers from the opera were occasionally brought in as soloists in Hamburg churches in place of the traditional boy sopranos, and we know that passion music sometimes went beyond the church to be sung in secular concerts.

Part of the beauty of this passion is in the simplicity and directness of its music and story telling.  Telemann's chorales too are harmonically simpler than Bach's, no doubt partly a reflection of the fact that the congregation sang along in the chorales of Telemann's works, whereas they did not in Bach's.  Telemann himself remarked that he wanted the chorales to be simple enough for the congregation to sing, although they were not to be limited to mere "kettledrum harmonies."

There are, to be sure, deeply dramatic moments in this work, such as the crowd's call to release Barrabas, the chorus Ach, klage, or the dying words of Jesus on the cross.  One may hear similarities in the way Bach and Telemann set several key events in the drama -- e. g. the chromatic melisma when Peter weeps bitterly -- but these are not so much the influence of one composer on the other as they are common material that was used by many composers.

Telemann is known today mainly for his chamber music, a few orchestral pieces, and a few vocal works.  But many of these are his lighter pieces written for informal occasions and are hardly enough to understand the extravagant praise heaped upon him by his contemporaries or the high esteem in which he was held by a composer such as Handel.  His total output, more vast than that of any other major composer, includes thousands of vocal works, among them many operas, passions and other major compositions that are unknown to the general public today, as well as thousands of chamber and orchestral works.  His music has not yet been fully catalogued.

Telemann was born in Magdeburg, Germany on March 14, 1681.  Largely self-taught as a musician, he composed music regularly for the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig while enrolled in the university there as a law student.  He eventually gave up law to devote himself full-time to music, writing cantatas for the churches and operas for the theater in Leipzig, as well as orchestral suites for the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, an ensemble which he founded and which Bach was to direct years later.

After leaving Leipzig in 1705, he found employment at Sorau (now in Poland), Eisenach and Frankfurt before settling in Hamburg, where he was to remain for the rest of his life.  During these years, Telemann came into close contact with and assimilated various musical styles, among them French, Italian and, according to his own account, Polish folk music.  The number and range of his activities in Hamburg is staggering.  In addition to being the director of music for the Hamburg churches, he composed frequently for the Hamburg opera, became director of that company, and composed for many other musical functions. 

In 1722, in what was probably an attempt to pressure his employers in Hamburg, he applied for the post of cantor at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.  He was offered the position but turned it down once he was offered improved conditions in Hamburg.  The job in Leipzig eventually went to the council's third choice, J. S. Bach.

Orchestration Chart

This chart gives an overview of the work, showing which soloists and instruments are in each movement. It has also been useful in planning rehearsals, since one can see at a glance all the music that a particular musician plays. Red X's indicate major solo moments for a singer. An X in parentheses indicates that the use of that instrument is ad libitum.

This is a preview of the beginning of the chart. You can download or view a PDF of the whole chart here.

Boston Baroque Performances

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