BACH, Johann Sebastian 1685-1750

[BWV 244]. Grosse Passionsmusik nach dem Evangelium Matthaei ... Vollständiger Klavierauszug von Adolph Bernhard Marx. Seiner Königl. Hoheit dem Kronprinzen von Preussen in tiefster Ehrfurcht gewidmet vom Verleger. Preis der Partitur: R: 18 Preis des Klavierausz: R: 7-1/2. [Piano-vocal score]

Berlin: Schlesinger'schen Buch- und Musikhandlung. Unter den Linden, No. 34 [PN 1571], [?1830-40].

Oblong folio. Light tan calf-backed green marbled boards with dark green title label gilt within decorative border gilt to upper, dark brown leather title label gilt to spine. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), [1]-3 (list of subscribers), [4] (index of the 78 numbers contained in the score, verso blank), 5-190 pp. Engraved throughout.

Small circular handstamp to blank inner corner of title.

Ex libris German philologist and art historian Gustav Friedrich Konstantin Parthey (1798-1872), with his decorative bookplate to front pastedown.

The list of 140 subscribers includes 11 royal persons and 129 others, listed by city: Berlin, Brandenburg, Breslau, Cassel, Cöln, Dessau, Dresden, Erlangen, Elberfeld, Frankfurth a.d.O, Frankfurth a.M., Freyberg, Göttingen, Halberstadt, Hamburg, Hamm, Hannover, Königsberg, Leipzig, London, Mainz, Marienwerder, München, Neubrandenburg, Nürnberg, Oels bei Ohlau, Paris, Potsdam, Prag, Rostock, Stettin, Stockholm, Wien, and Würzburg.

Browned; some pages with weak impression.

A later printing of the first edition, with the index printed on the verso of the final page of the subscribers list. Lacking plate number to foot of pages 12, 42, 84, 118, and 176, but with corrected plate number to foot of pages 143 and 157. With the two eighth-note rests missing in the tenth measure of the vocal part on page 37.

Schneider 112. Hoboken I, 27, citing an issue with incorrect plate numbers to the foot of pages 143 (1572) and 157 (1575). Crawford p. 7. Fuld p. 171. Hirsch IV, 1136. Riemenschneider 1999. RISM B436.

The present copy conforms to that cited by Crawford, who describes it as the first issue; there is, however, no mention in his description of the corrected plate numbers to pages 143 and 157.

The St. Matthew Passion, a sacred oratorio for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra with interspersed chorales and arias, sets chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew. The work was composed in 1727 to text by the noted poet "Picander" (Christian Friedrich Henrici, 1700-1764).

"It was due to Mendelssohn's unwavering enthusiasm that in 1829, a century after the Leipzig performance, the St. Matthew Passion was produced under his leadership in Berlin. This was a dazzling revelation to the musical world since - apart from infrequent performances of the motets - hardly any of Bach's great vocal works had been heard before. In the following years, as a direct result of the performance, the two Passions and, in 1845, the Mass in B minor were published." Geiringer: Bach, p. 351.

"The St. Matthew Passion is by any standard a remarkable composition - one of the most complex of all Bach's vocal works and for many the most profound. Mendelssohn considered it to be 'the greatest of Christian works', and many other superlatives have continued to be accorded this emotionally powerful music, which almost every choral group aspires to perform." Boyd, ed.: J.S. Bach, p. 430.

The arranger Adolf Berhard (1795-1866), a German music theorist, critic and pedagogue, was "one of the most influential theorists of the 19th century, Marx named and codified sonata form ... [He] had become friends with the Mendelssohn family in 1826, and in 1829 he assisted Felix Mendelssohn with the important performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion ..." Sanna Pederson in Grove Music Online

A masterpiece of sacred music, the highly important first performance of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin on 11 March 1829, with Mendelssohn conducting, heralded a reawakening of interest in Bach's music.

Item #39275

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