So
in the "John" Passion Bach has given us, first, a vivid picture of the
turbulent crowd and of the suffering and death of Christ; second, an
expression of man's bitterest remorse; and, last and above all, an
expression of man's hope for the future and his thankfulness to Christ
who redeemed him. These are what one remembers after hearing the work
sung; and these, it may be remarked, are the things that the
seventeenth and eighteenth century mind chiefly saw in the sorrow and
death of Jesus of Nazareth.
III.
The "Matthew" Passion arouses a very different mood from that aroused
by the "John." One does not remember the turbulent people's choruses,
nor the piercing note of anguish, nor any rapturous song or chorus;
for all else is drowned in the recollection of an overwhelming
utterance of love and human sorrow and infinite tenderness. Much else
there is in the "Matthew" Passion, just as there is love and
tenderness in the "John"; but just as these are subordinated in the
"John" to the more striking features I have mentioned, so in the
"Matthew" the noise of the people and the expression of keen remorse
are subordinated to love and human tenderness and infinite sorrow. The
small number and conciseness of the people's choruses have already
been alluded to, and it may easily be shown that the penitential music
is brief compared with the love music, besides having a great deal of
the love, the yearning love, feeling in it.
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