Bach, Johann Sebastian.

comprising eight nineteenth-century manuscript volumes, for the Soprano (3), Tenore (3) and Basso (2) parts from Chorus I, with individual title pages ("Passions=Musik von J.S. Bach/ Soprano Coro 1^{mo / No. 1 [...18...19]" etc), each marked "von J.S. Bach" and numbered on the title-page in a contemporary hand, the music in various professional hands, containing 35 numbered sections, written in brown ink on six staves per page, with cues for the endings of recitatives underlined in red ink, each part including an additional Chorale in the 'Zweiter Theil' (No. 19a, "Wer hat dich so geschlagen") in the hand of Mendelssohn's scribe Eduard Henschke, on a new leaf stitched into place, [c.1829]}



8 volumes, oblong 4to (c.20 x 24cms), laid paper with chain lines but no discernible watermark, the inserted leaves for the Chorale 19^{a on different paper, up to 30 pages each, early pagination in pencil (not counting the additional leaf), unbound, soprano part no.1 lacking 2 leaves, numbers 34-35 in the tenor parts misnumbered, some staining to titles}



 

Martin Geck, Die Wiederentdeckung der Matthäuspassion im 19. Jahrhundert (Regensburg 1967).  R. L. Todd, Mendelssohn.  A Life in Music (Oxford, 2003). R. Wehner, MWV Anhang B, p.499; M. Crum and P.W. Jones, Catalogue of the Mendelssohn papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 3 vols (Tutzing, 1980-1989), where the inscriptions "von J.S. Bach" are attributed to Mendelssohn. 

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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These choral parts were copied and used for Mendelssohn's famous performance of the "St Matthew Passion" on 11 March 1829, the greatest event in the revival of J.S. Bach's music.  They were later revised when Mendelssohn conducted the work at the Thomaskirche, Leipzig in 1841.

The story of Mendelssohn's revival of the St. Matthew Passion is famous:  Bach's music had lain largely forgotten since his death, and the St. Matthew Passion remained unpublished. The Singakademie in Berlin possessed a manuscript full score, from which the director Carl Zelter occasionally performed a few choruses. Mendelssohn's grandmother presented the young Felix with a copy of this full score in c.1824, and he subsequently urged Zelter to grant him permission to perform the great work, in abbreviated form, for the first time since the mid eighteenth century.

These choral parts reflect Mendelssohn's reduction of the score in 35 numbers, and observe his cuts, tempo indications and alterations to the text for his performances in Berlin in March 1829.  Mendelssohn cut a number of famous chorales, including numbers 17, 32, 37, 38b, 40, 42 and 44, as well as many arias; these are missing here too (see Geck, pp.36-37). The chorale number 37 was later reinstated (here in the hand of Henschke, and numbered "19^a"), when Mendelssohn conducted the work at the Thomaskirche in 1841 (see Todd, p.412).  Mendelssohn also altered some of the words of the celebrated chorale "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden", and these changes are also observed here (see Todd, p.197).  These choral parts were prepared with those now in Oxford (Bodleian Library: Ms. Mus. d.210), and London, British Library Add. ms. 47839 A-H).  They are are to all intents and purposes identical, including the chorale reinstated in 1841; unlike those in Oxford and London, the present parts remain in their original unbound state.  We understand that there are also copies at Leipzig (the Mendessohn-Haus) and Utrecht, some privately owned.

Our voice-parts are all from Chorus I: for sopranos 1 (incomplete), 18 & 19, tenors 14, 15 & 16, and basses 14 & 15.  They may have been copied from Mendelssohn's own full score where he marked the cuts and tempo markings observed here, or else from Bach's original (partly autograph) set of parts in the Singakademie.  Mendelssohn's score, together with all the instrumental parts, is also at Oxford (Bodleian Library M.D.M c.68 etc.).