FULL PASSIONSORATORIUM (Bach) Schmalkalden 2025 Jana Pieters, William Shelton, Hans Jörg Mammel

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Passionsoratorium   
• Composer: Bach Johann Sebastian  
• Libretto: Picander's libretto is influenced by the famous Passion poem "Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und Sterbende Jesus" by Barthold Heinrich Brockes  
• Venue & Opera Company: Stadtkirche St. Georg in Schmalkalden, Germany  
• Recorded: April 15, 2025
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers: Jana Pieters, William Shelton, Hans Jörg Mammel, Tiemo Wang, Jonathan Sells
• Conductor: Alexander Grychtolik  
• Orchestra: Il Gardellino  
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: ARTE  
• Date Published: 2026  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

  Music history is full of mysteries and surprises. Is there such a thing as Bach’s “Unfinished” Passion, or more precisely, an unfinished one?

  For almost 150 years, Bach scholars have puzzled over a lost Passion oratorio by the Thomaskantor. At least a printed libretto, published in 1725 by the poet Picander—one of Bach’s favorite librettists—was discovered in the research library at Gotha Castle. It is certain, at least, that Picander incorporated excerpts from this libretto into his later St. Matthew Passion. For this reason, the “Unknown” Passion is currently listed in the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalogue) as a work without a clear attribution.

  Picander’s libretto is influenced by the famous Passion poem “Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und Sterbende Jesus” (Jesus, Martyred and Dying for the Sins of the World) by Barthold Heinrich Brockes. Handel set this poem to music, and a copy was found in Bach’s library. This seems to have inspired the present Passion oratorio. Because the biblical text in such a work is not translated literally, but rather into a free poetic form, the work may have displeased the Leipzig City Council and thus fallen victim to censorship.

  The harpsichordist and conductor Alexander Grychtolik has now undertaken the experiment of reconstructing and completing the Passion Oratorio. Together with the Belgian ensemble Il Gardellino, he performed the work during the 2025 Thuringian Bach Festival in the town church of Schmalkalden.

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