HANDEL’S ST JOHN PASSION: A FRESH LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE

FROM MATTHESON’S CRITICA MUSICA

RAINER KLEINERTZ

The subject of this article is an early 18th-century St John Passion, which today is gener-

ally considered not to have been composed by Handel. The question of its authorship

has been answered in various ways, and perhaps we will never know who wrote the

piece. Some scholars have used evidence from Johann Mattheson’s Critica Musica to

conclude that Handel did not write the work.1 In this article, I re-examine Mattheson’s

text, and explore the possibility that Handel might, after all, be the composer of this

Passion.

The first person to draw attention to the manuscript score of a St John Passion in the

Berlin State Library, supposedly by Handel, was his biographer, Friedrich Chrysander.2

The identification of the anonymous work was made possible because Johann Matthe-

son mentions this Passion in 1724 in a long critical review in dialogue form: his Critica

Musica.3 Mattheson, however, refrains from giving the composer’s name. He merely

states that the work was written some twenty or thirty years earlier by a certain ‘world-

famous man’, a title which suggested Handel. Chrysander concluded that the Passion

had been written for Holy Week 1704, and included it in his monumental edition of

Handel’s works.4 For stylistic reasons, he would have preferred to date the work from

before summer 1703 (the time when Handel arrived in Hamburg), but the text seemed to

indicate Hamburg as its place of origin.

The debate

The first person to cast serious doubt on Handel’s authorship was Edward Davey Ren-

dall in 1905. Comparing the St John Passion with Handel’s first opera, Almira, premi-

èred in Hamburg on 8 January 1705, Rendall concluded that whereas Almira already

sounded Handelian, the St John Passion did not, and should therefore be attributed ‘to

some Keiser or Telemann of that date’.5 Its German style and its picturesque word-set-

ting in the recitatives, at such points as ‘and scourged him’, had for Rendall ‘no place in

Handel’s art’, although it was a feature of Messiah, composed much later.

Despite these doubts, the editors of the critical edition of Handel’s works, the Hal-

lische Händel-Ausgabe, included the Passion in the main corpus of their edition. In a

short preface, the editor K. G. Fellerer merely mentioned that there were doubts con-

cerning its authorship.6 A critical commentary has never been published. In 1976, how-

ever, Bernd Baselt concluded that the work was not by Handel,7 stating that there was

no evidence for Chrysander’s conclusions. Baselt suggested that Mattheson’s ‘world-fa-

mous’ composer was Mattheson himself. He inferred this from the introduction to Mat-

theson’s Enquiry about a certain Passion (‘Des fragenden Componisten ... Verhör über

eine gewisse Passion’) in his Critica Musica. Here Mattheson explains why he chose

this composition by a world-famous person, although it was more than twenty years old,

as a subject of his Enquiry:

2

‘If we take such a subject from the director in the moon, or from the great musical director in

the sun, this cannot mislead anybody as long as we proceed with exact truth and fairness…

neither mentioning nor insulting anyone, but maintaining reason and unaffected politeness.

This I shall do, as if it were my own work and my own performance… Because I wish, even

with my own countless errors, to be useful to the world, and thus to make clear that by doing

so, I do to others only what I would wish to be done to myself.’8

Baselt concluded that Mattheson, in his vanity, would not have accepted the errors of

others as his own. However, Mattheson is here referring to two different Passions: in the

previous year, 1723, Mattheson had set the same text to music under the title Das Lied

des Lammes (The Song of the Lamb). So the Enquiry examines both the twenty-year-old

St John Passion and Mattheson’s own, entitled Das Lied des Lammes.9 Baselt correctly

asserts that Handel was not the only composer whom Mattheson might have described

as world-famous, nevertheless for Mattheson10 and his contemporaries, Handel was a

very likely candidate. Baselt’s argument against Handel’s authorship of the Passion is

only that of stylistic evidence. Two other authors made similar suggestions. In 1986

Harald Kümmerling tried to demonstrate that the composer of the St John Passion was

Georg Böhm (1661-1733), an organist in Lüneburg, a city close to Hamburg. Kümmer-

ling concludes this from the fact that the writer of the Passion manuscript is the same

scribe who had copied other works by Georg Böhm which are found in the Bokemeyer

collection.11

Then in 1987, Hans Joachim Marx suggested that the composer was Christian Ritter

(c.1646-after 1717).12 Ritter was musical director at the Swedish court and apparently

visited Hamburg in 1704. Mattheson mentions him as one of the thirteen famous men to

whom he dedicated his Protected Orchestra in 1717.13 But there is no argument in fa-

vour of Ritter which would not be equally valid for Handel. Again it was presumed sty-

listic evidence which led Marx to the conclusion that the work could not be by Handel.

Apart from the unreliability of applying stylistic criteria to questions of authenticity

and chronology, the case of Handel’s St John Passion is made more difficult by the fact

that no work of the same genre by Handel has survived. His only major extant work

from before his journey to Italy is the opera Almira, premièred in January 1705. Almira,

however, is a dramatic, secular work with recitatives in verse, and the only surviving

manuscript copy is an adaptation for restaging in Hamburg under Telemann’s direction

in 1732.14 And whereas the recitatives of Almira were translated into German verse by

the experienced poet Friedrich Christian Feustking, Martin Luther’s translation of the

gospel is an archaic prose text, which is much more difficult to set to music.15 Handel

never again set a German gospel text to music, and so a comparison of the St John Pas-

sion with other works by Handel is problematic.

Another argument which has been used to disprove Handel’s authorship of the Pas-

sion is that he did not use its music in other works. However, the possibility of such bor-

rowings and the probability of finding them are minimal, since none of Handel’s other

church compositions with German texts have survived. The cantatas which he wrote in

Halle are lost, and if – as we may assume – Handel wrote other liturgical works during

3

his time in Halle and Hamburg, these no longer survive. Apart from Almira, even the

operas which Handel wrote in Hamburg have been lost, and one would not expect to

find music from the liturgical compositions which Handel wrote in Halle or Hamburg in

such Italian works as Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, or La resurrezione.

On the other hand, Handel’s Brockes Passion, with which Marx compares the St

John Passion, is not a so-called ‘oratorio passion’ (a gospel text with added poetry for

the arias and choruses) but a ‘passion oratorio’ with newly written verse for each char-

acter, even for the evangelist. But more important in terms of style – and this makes a

comparison between the two works almost impossible – is that the Brockes Passion was

written more than a decade after the St John Passion. The two pieces are separated by

Handel’s stay in Italy, his appointment to the court of Hanover and his first years in

London. During this decade, there was also a fundamental change in the style of Ger-

man church music.

The use of stylistic evidence to disprove Handel’s authorship of the St John Passion

becomes less convincing when we read what Mattheson tells us in his Grundlage einer

Ehren-Pforte (or Foundation for a Portal of Honour), a collection of musical biog-

raphies published in 1740. Mattheson relates that when Handel arrived in Hamburg in

the summer of 1703, his musical taste was quite old-fashioned:

‘At that time he composed very long arias and almost endless cantatas which, despite their

excellent harmony didn’t display great skill or good taste; but soon he became better edu-

cated in the high school of opera.’16

Earlier, in the first volume of his Critica Musica (1723), Mattheson had criticised Han-

del in an article entitled The Canonic Anatomy, which was a polemic against the cantor

of Wolfenbüttel, Heinrich Bokemeyer, on the importance of canonic writing. Mattheson

comments:

‘When a certain world-famous man came here to Hamburg for the first time, he knew how to

compose almost nothing but regular fugues, and melodic imitationes were as new to him as a

foreign language and were similarly troublesome for him. I remember quite clearly how he

brought his very first opera to me, scene by scene, and every evening he wanted to hear my

opinion on how difficult it was for him to conceal the pedant.’17

Surprisingly, even here in the first part of his Critica Musica, Mattheson does not re-

veal the name of this world-famous person. It seems clear, however, that Mattheson’s

readers knew the composer whom he was describing, and there has been no doubt

among Handel scholars that the world-famous person was Handel and that the opera

concerned was his Almira.18 It is probably no coincidence that in the same article of his

Critica Musica,19 Mattheson quotes Bokemeyer’s opinion of Handel’s church music:

‘The composers who are popular today seek glory through fast music, strange harmonic

structures and unrestrained ideas; they claim the greatest freedom for themselves, so that in

their music, true art appears to have been banished. The wisest of them, however, know

4

when to reveal their art, though subtlely, and this can be demonstrated in (among others) Mr.

Handel’s church works, a few of which I have been fortunate to examine.’20

Which of Handel’s ‘church works’ (Kirchen-Stücke) might Bokemeyer have examined?

It is unlikely that he knew Handel’s Latin church music composed in Italy21 or his Eng-

lish church music. As the term Kirchen-Stücke suggests, it was probably music for the

German Protestant liturgy, such as the lost church cantatas composed in Halle or – pos-

sibly – the St John Passion. The duet no.9 ‘Schauet, mein Jesus ist Rosen zu gleichen’

(see ex.1 below), or the chorus no.25 ‘Lässest du diesen los’, for example, would well

match what Bokemeyer wanted to demonstrate.22

At the end of the next part of his polemic against Bokemeyer, Mattheson announces

a ‘new and special’ Passion to be performed ‘on the occasion of this Anatomy’ (i.e. the

publication of this polemic in Critica Musica), on 7 March of the same year, 1723, in

Hamburg cathedral, where Mattheson was musical director:

‘…Sacred music has featured somewhat more prominently here [in Hamburg], and among

others, the author of the Critica Musica [Mattheson himself], God be praised, will also direct

on 7 March in the cathedral on the occasion of this Anatomy a new and original Passion,

which includes various harmonic devices (artificia harmonica) such as double counter-

point…, double fugues with two or three subjects… in such a modern and melodic way that

the usual barrenness of these devices will hardly be noticed. The composer has done this,

however, not to claim unique knowledge or a monopoly of these little inventions, but on the

contrary, simply to demonstrate (1) that he did not learn to compose only yesterday, (2) that

he neither hates nor despises these devices… And so he has decided to set forth at the first

opportunity some sixty critical questions concerning composition, which may be helpful to

many readers.’23

The Passion which Mattheson announces here is his Das Lied des Lammes, a Passion

with the same text, including the arias and choruses, as that of the world-famous com-

poser’s St John Passion, which Mattheson intended to discuss in his simultaneously an-

nounced Enquiry. The Enquiry would contain ‘some sixty critical questions concerning

composition’. The wording and the context of the polemic against Bokemeyer indicate

that Mattheson’s Passion formed part of the argument. Bokemeyer’s praise of Handel’s

church music was answered by Mattheson with the composition of his own St John Pas-

sion (Das Lied des Lammes), as a model of ‘correct’ church music. This also suggests

that Bokemeyer may well have had ‘Handel’s’ St John Passion in his hands. Only this

fact would explain why Mattheson should compose music to the identical text. By doing

so, Mattheson intended to demonstrate a ‘modern and melodic’ use of the artificia har-

monica required by Bokemeyer, and he would continue the debate in his Enquiry.24

The evidence

In order to identify the composer of the St John Passion preserved in the Staatsbiblio-

thek, Berlin, let us now review the facts. The manuscript forms part of the Poelchau col-

lection, which was assembled in the early 19th century. It was probably written in the

5

early 18th century in northern Germany, and was associated with the collection of Hein-

rich Bokemeyer.25 When Mattheson composed Das Lied des Lammes and wrote his En-

quiry, he must have had either this manuscript or another copy of it.

The text of several of the arias must have been written before March 1705, when the

poet Christian Heinrich Postel (1658–1705) died in Hamburg. Postel was an important

German baroque poet and one of the leading librettists of the Hamburg Opera. Three of

the arias in the St John Passion were included by Christian Friedrich Hunold in his The-

atralische, Galante und Geistliche Gedichte, published in Hamburg in 1706. Hunold in-

troduces Postel’s arias with the following words: ‘The licentiate Postel, of blessed

memory, has written different arias in an earlier Passion. As they are familiar to only a

few people, I cannot omit to reproduce a couple of them.’26 Hunold’s words make it

clear that Postel wrote more than the three arias included in his collection, but it is not

certain that he is the author of all twelve arias, the duets and the final chorus of the St

John Passion.

Hunold’s remark that Postel wrote the arias for an existing Passion is significant. In

Hamburg around 1700, it was customary to include a musical performance in the Holy

Week services. At the cathedral, this was normally composed in a conservative style by

the musical director, Friedrich Nikolaus Bruhns (or Brauns). The gospel text was inter-

spersed with a number of chorale ‘arias’ for solo or tutti with instrumental accompani-

ment.27 At other Hamburg churches, singers from the Opera apparently performed more

elaborate compositions. A chronicle preserved in the Commerzbibliothek, Hamburg,

records that on Good Friday 1699 ‘in the afternoon at St James church, a piece com-

posed for this occasion with arias from the Passion was sung by the opera singers,

which included several women’.28

In 1701 the same chronicle records that ‘for the past four or five years on Good Fri-

day afternoon, during vespers at St James church, the Passion from the 19th chapter of St

John’s gospel has been performed by the opera singers’.29 The statement that the Pas-

sion began at the 19th chapter of St John’s gospel is interesting, since the text of ‘Han-

del’s’ St John Passion starts at the same quite unusual point, the scourging of Christ.30

Apparently this ‘short’ St John Passion was the ‘earlier Passion’ for which Postel wrote

‘different arias’. We do not know when he did so or whether the composer of this Pas-

sion was the first to set Postel’s verses to music. But the fact that the composed text

contains no chorales, and that some of the arias, for example the theatrical ‘Let hell re-

sound with thunder’ (Erschüttere mit Krachen, no. 30), are in da capo form, suggests

that something similar to Erdmann Neumeister’s reform of the church cantata had taken

place: arias with biblical texts or chorale verses have been replaced by arias with mod-

ern ‘madrigalian’ poetry.

Since Neumeister first issued his Sacred cantatas instead of church music (Geist-

lichen Cantaten statt einer Kirchen-Music) in 1700 (the first complete cycle was pub-

lished in 1704), we may assume that the Passion text was written after this date.

Neumeister was known in Hamburg before the appearance of Christian Friedrich

Hunold’s and Reinhard Keiser’s passion oratorio Der blutige und sterbende Jesus,

which was first performed in 1704 or 1705, since Hunold states in the preface to his

Theatralische, Galante und Geistliche Gedichte that he used Neumeister’s cantatas as a

6

model for his own Passion poetry.31 It is likely that Postel was also influenced by

Neumeister, even if he did not – like Hunold – set the Passion entirely to non-biblical

verse, but limited himself to the addition of some arias with new poetic texts. Setting

aside the question of the composition’s authorship, the form of its text suggests a date

some time after 1700, probably 1704/5, when the passion oratorio Der blutige sterbende

Jesus, written by Hunold and Keiser, was performed.

The music of the St John Passion begins with a short sinfonia, six bars long (see il-

lus.5). The Passion text starts with the evangelist’s words: ‘Then Pilate took Jesus and

scourged him’, followed by the first aria.32 Despite the fact that the events of Holy

Thursday night – the arrest of Jesus and Peter’s denial – are omitted, the Passion is still

divided into two separate parts. This indicates that the composition was intended for li-

turgical performance: the two parts were performed before and after the sermon. Han-

del’s Brockes Passion, which was not intended for liturgical use, has no such division.

The music manuscript, as mentioned above, is anonymous, but later in the 18th or

early 19th century, someone wrote Handel’s name on the cover with the comment:

‘NB. It is this Passion which Mattheson criticises so sharply in his Critica Musica vol.

II, under the title The Enquiring Composer and also in parts of his Perfect Capellmeis-

ter, p. 176, for its faulty expression. Yet it is supposed to be a work of Handel’s, perhaps

one of his earliest.’33 Thus the composition is here assumed to be identical with the ‘cer-

tain Passion of a world-famous man’ which Mattheson describes in his Critica Musica.

The person who wrote the note was evidently not the first to suspect Handel’s author-

ship of the Passion which Mattheson criticised.

Mattheson’s criticism of the Passion

What did Mattheson criticise so sharply in his Enquiry? He has three main objections.

Firstly, he maintains that no words or phrases should be repeated before the meaning of

a sentence is complete. As one of many examples Mattheson quotes the duet ‘Schauet,

mein Jesus ist Rosen zu gleichen’ (no.9: ‘See, my Jesus appears as a rose’).

Ex.1. St John Passion: duet ‘Schauet, mein Jesus’, bars 1-8.

7

In fact, the St John Passion here shows stylistic features which are characteristic of Ger-

man Protestant church music of the 17th and early 18th century, for example that of Han-

del’s teacher, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. For Mattheson, repetition before the comple-

tion of a sentence contravenes the most important rule in word-setting.34 He repeats his

criticism, using a second example from Pilate’s arioso ‘Nehmet ihr ihn hin und kreuzi-

get ihn, denn ich finde keine Schuld an ihm’ (no.15: ‘Take him away and crucify him,

for I find no fault in him’).

Ex.2. St John Passion: arioso ‘Nehmet ihr ihn hin’, bars 1-13.

Mattheson asks whether it is permissible to follow the words ‘denn ich finde’ with a rest

and then to repeat them. He answers: only if we were to suppose that Pilate stuttered or

that he had an obstruction in his throat which did not allow him to continue!35

The second feature which Mattheson criticises concerns the true sense of the words

(or affekt). In question 11 he asks whether there is a specific affekt in the chorus ‘Sei ge-

grüsset, lieber Judenkönig!’ (no.5: ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’).

8

Ex.3. St John Passion: chorus ‘Sei gegrüsset’, bars 1-4.

Mattheson replies: ‘Yes, scorn, derision, laughter, mockery…’ For this reason, the set-

ting of the sentence should not be of a serious tone, for this alters the affekt, and there-

fore contradicts the most important rule of composition.36 Mattheson would have pre-

ferred two short themes, the first for ‘Sei gegrüsset’ to convey seriousness, and the sec-

ond for ‘lieber Juden-König’ with short mocking leaps. He sets the text ‘correctly’ in his

own Das Lied des Lammes (no.6).

9

Ex.4. Mattheson Das Lied des Lammes: chorus ‘Sei gegrüsset’, bars 1-6.

A third target of Mattheson’s criticism is the frequent use of descriptive musical fig-

ures to highlight words such as ‘scourged’.37 Here again the St John Passion employs a

feature of earlier Protestant church music.

There are several other points which Mattheson criticises. His second question reads:

‘Is it well done to start a magnificent piece of church music with a short recitative, for

example “Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him”?’ He answers that this concerns the

poet more than the composer, but it should be avoided, nevertheless. Even if the recita-

tive is preceded by a sinfonia, this should be followed first by a chorale, for example

‘Christus der uns selig macht’, which already foreshadows the passion.38

It is not surprising to find that in his own setting of the St John Passion, as performed

in March 1723 and announced some weeks beforehand in his Critica Musica, Matthe-

son demonstrated the ‘correct’ use of all these elements. But why did he use the text of

10

the earlier St John Passion, without changing its arias? Mattheson merely limited him-

self to the addition of a chorale at the beginning of each part, as he demanded in his En-

quiry (question 2).39

Mattheson felt obliged to justify both his re-composition of the Passion and his En-

quiry. In the introduction to his musical debate we read:

‘…It is easy to make objections about a piece which was composed twenty or thirty years

ago and was quite beautiful according to our knowledge then. It would be bad, childish and

foolish to criticise it, if one’s only intention were to find fault with it. Yet such criticism may

be helpful: it can show us how inappropriate is the fame and honour that one may receive

from transitory, practical works. It also demonstrates that earlier mistakes still happen all the

time, although they escape our notice. But I am unwilling to rebuke the former efforts of

someone else, much less to apportion the slightest blame; especially since, as I said, the

piece thoroughly deserved approval in its time and, in a certain sense, still does. I only wish

to demonstrate with some vigour that our arts rest upon weak foundations; that we should

learn from day to day, which does not yet happen, and that one may acquire most knowledge

from precisely the false steps of great men. Consequently we must seek and find stronger

foundations and better principles. This is my aim, next to the glory of God.’40

Whereas Bokemeyer had demonstrated the superiority of canonic writing by quoting ex-

amples from the past and from a single contemporary, Handel, Mattheson adopted an

opposite approach: music should be based not on practice but on reason. It is the task of

reason to provide modern musical practice with better principles, particularly by

demonstrating the ‘false steps of great men’.

Mattheson continues to justify his new setting of the St John Passion in question 1 of

his Enquiry, which reads: ‘Is it well done to compose new music to the words which a

world-famous person has already set to music?’ His answer, the longest in the entire En-

quiry, examines three aspects of the music: its purpose, its period (or the time when it

was composed) and its occasion.

1. Its purpose

Mattheson justifies the purpose for which he composed Das Lied des Lammes in the fol-

lowing way:

‘If my purpose were to expose the mistakes of a so-called world-famous person and to flaunt

his errors in order to flatter myself, then my conduct cannot be approved. But if my purpose

is God’s honour rather than my own, the edification of listeners and the advancement of

knowledge, … then one should praise it on all counts. For what I heard once from a world-

famous man was that if he composed a work and someone else then set it differently, the sec-

ond piece was necessarily bad. This view has never entered my head, even had it been pro-

nounced by the pope of all music.’41

Mattheson argues that music is so rich in harmony and melody that two or more com-

posers might set a text in different ways, and so both compose well. Secondly, words

may have an affekt of which the first composer is not aware, but which is grasped by his

successors. And thirdly, excellent composers often revise their former compositions.

11

2. Its period After quoting from Rameau’s Traité de l’harmonie, Mattheson then proceeds to justify

his setting of the Passion from the standpoint of the time when it was written:

‘Concerning the period [of its composition], it is well known that some pieces of music are

as short-lived as a midge, and become obsolete much sooner than others. When a composi-

tion is some months or years old (because only a few are long-lived), many circumstances

will have changed, which in turn demand considerable alterations in the embellishment of

the music. Fundamental precepts, however, endure (even if they have not yet been em-

ployed)… So no one wishing to revise a famous man’s composition, may use the excuse of

its age if the work is still new and of a sort that will not soon become old-fashioned… I

would willingly wait another twenty or thirty years if I were not compelled by other motives,

because the work of famous and respectable men should be held in honour.’42

Here, in rather baroque language, Mattheson indicates that the real target of his criticism

is not the earlier St John Passion, whoever its famous author was, but rather a more re-

cent work which was only ‘some months or years old’. Instead of explaining why the

critic’s target is a work more than twenty or thirty years old, he tells the surprised reader

that he ‘would willingly wait another twenty or thirty years’, had there not been other

compelling motives for the revision.

3. Its occasion

For Mattheson, the occasion for composing new music to words which someone else

had already set might be firstly the example of others who have done the same, or sec-

ondly, someone might wish to perform an earlier composition, but finds that some of its

movements do not follow the correct principles of melodic writing. In that case, they

would do better to compose new music, rather than correcting the earlier piece, a proce-

dure which, Mattheson points out, is not permissible, although some people do so.

Thirdly, some distinguished man might have commissioned such a piece, and anyone

who had the slightest doubt about this would appear ridiculous.43

Apparently there were people who did not believe that Mattheson had been commis-

sioned to compose a St John Passion (Das Lied des Lammes), because in Hamburg his

fame as a composer was not at its height. The Hamburg poet Christian Friedrich Weich-

mann remarked in a polemic against Mattheson in 1722 that it was not necessary ‘to be

a great connoisseur or musical critic to know that the music of Mr Händel and Mr Tele-

mann is more pleasing to the ear than Mr Mattheson’s.’44 Weichmann added that it was

equally unnecessary to know much about music to understand how pedantic it was to

imitate a cock crowing in a Passion. This, however, Weichmann continues, had been

done in the last two years by Mattheson, in such an unnatural way that many thought it

was a Jewish cock!45 The comparison of works by Handel, Telemann and Mattheson

(who had composed no operas since 1711) means that Weichmann must be referring to

the most important sacred work performed in Hamburg at this time: the Brockes Pas-

sion, set by Keiser, Telemann, Handel and Mattheson.46

12

Until now, Mattheson appears to have been concerned with the St John Passion, al-

though it is difficult to understand the reason behind his enormous effort to prove that

this work was considered old-fashioned by 1724. However, there is evidence that the

real target of Mattheson’s attack was not the earlier St John Passion, but the passion or-

atorio Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus, written by the Ham-

burg poet and senator, Barthold Heinrich Brockes.

The Brockes Passion

This important and influential text had been set to music by Keiser in 1712, by Tele-

mann in 1716 (in Frankfurt am Main) and by Mattheson in 1718. It is not known when

Handel composed his Brockes Passion. Mattheson tells us in his Portal of Honour

(1740) that Handel wrote the music in England and sent the score to Hamburg,47 – al-

though not to Mattheson himself, as is often conjectured – before Palm Sunday 1718,

when Mattheson’s own Brockes Passion was premièred. Mattheson emphasises that he

was the last of the four to set this poem to music, but that his setting was performed be-

fore Handel’s, although those by Handel and Telemann had already arrived in Ham-

burg.48 All four oratorios were performed in Hamburg in Lent 1719, a quite unusual

event.

Mattheson must have been criticised for competing openly with the three most im-

portant German composers of the time.49 This would explain why question 1 of his En-

quiry asks whether it is ‘well done to compose music to the words which a world-fa-

mous person has already set’, and this would also explain why no other question in the

whole Enquiry is answered at such length. The world-famous person’s claim, quoted by

Mattheson, that ‘if he composed a piece and someone else then set it differently, the sec-

ond piece was necessarily bad’, may well have been a statement about Mattheson’s set-

ting of the Brockes Passion. Mattheson’s composition seems to have been not only the

last, but also the least successful of the four. There is no indication that it was ever per-

formed outside Mattheson’s circle of influence, and even in compilations (pasticci) cre-

ated from the settings of Keiser, Telemann and Handel, Mattheson’s music is rarely in-

cluded.50

In two aspects of his Enquiry, Mattheson clearly refers to the Brockes Passion and

not to the earlier St John Passion. As we saw in question 2, Mattheson criticises the fact

that the earlier St John Passion opens with a simple recitative51. In question 3 he asks

whether such a piece should open with a long sinfonia. He replies that 24 bars should be

enough. As the St John Passion has a very short sinfonia, only six bars long, this cannot

be the target of question 3. Question 4 is even more surprising. He asks: ‘May the open-

ing chorus be a fugue?’ Mattheson replies that every piece should begin simply, so that

here a chorale melody would be more appropriate. Since in question 2, Mattheson criti-

cised the St John Passion for opening with a simple recitative, there can be no doubt

that Mattheson refers here to a different composition, apparently to Handel’s Brockes

Passion.

The only two settings of the Brockes Passion with a long sinfonia are those of Tele-

mann and Handel,52 and the only one whose opening chorus ‘Mich vom Stricke meiner

Sünden zu entbinden’ starts with what might be called a fugue is Handel’s work. There

13

are many other points in Mattheson’s critique (such as those demonstrated in the musi-

cal examples quoted earlier) which may refer to Handel’s Brockes Passion, but ques-

tions 3 and 4 apply only to Handel’s setting, and this would have been recognised by

any cultivated person in Hamburg who had heard or discussed the different settings.

Mattheson must have been convinced that his setting of the Brockes Passion was the

most modern and the most well-reasoned of the four, even though the others were more

successful. This leads Mattheson to the basic conflict which he explores in his Enquiry,

that of authority versus reason: who or what guides us to compose music correctly?

Mattheson’s answer is: reason, even if a world-famous composer composes differently.

Question 8 reads: ‘What can be done if we find that the earlier questions have been an-

swered differently by great and world-famous masters, whose works everyone applauds

and should applaud?’53 The answer is that too much attention is paid to great names,

such as Lully’s. While this may be acceptable in regard to opera, it is completely irre-

sponsible when considering sacred music. Mattheson continues by saying that the arts

and sciences suffer greatly from this type of appraisal, for proud men only become more

conceited by receiving such compliments.

In question 9, Mattheson expressly makes Handel the object of his attack, when he

asks whether one may put a rest between such phrases as Und die Kriegsknechte (‘And

the soldiers’) and the following phrase flochten eine Krone (‘made a crown of

thorns’).54 He answers that this is not permissible, although it is often done, as, for ex-

ample, in Augustin Reinhard Stricker’s Italian cantatas. Mattheson continues: ‘You ob-

ject that Stricker is no star of great magnitude? Then look at the [opera] Muzio Scevola.

You know who composed it!’55 Mattheson then accuses Handel of plagiarism, as he had

already done in the first volume of his Critica Musica.56 The opera Muzio Scevola with

music by Filippo Amadei (act I), Giovanni Bononcini (act II) and Handel (act III) was

performed several times in Hamburg in 1723.57 Mattheson here refers to Handel’s ‘bor-

rowed’ aria Spera che tra le care gioie di bella pace in Act III. Thus Mattheson could be

sure that his readers, at least in Hamburg, would easily identify the composer of Muzio

Scevola (‘You know who composed it!’). In this way he told his readers that in this ‘bor-

rowed’ aria, Handel made the same mistakes that one finds in his earlier St John Pas-

sion.58

In the introduction to the second part of his Enquiry, Mattheson again accuses the

‘world-famous composer’ of plagiarism and of inability to set words to music correctly:

‘When an unimaginative composer uses another’s melody for his own purposes and sets

words to it that do not fit at all, his bad judgement shows that he is a plagiarist, and that the

flower did not bloom in his own garden. The gift of good judgement is far more important

than that of creativity. Whoever lacks creativity is held to lack good judgement. If someone

wants to deck himself in borrowed plumes, he needs good judgement, just as a liar needs a

good memory.’59

This attack must be directed against Handel, since Mattheson has already accused

him of plagiarism. Mattheson invites his readers to see Handel as a composer who

decked himself in borrowed plumes, but lacked the judgement to set words to music

14

correctly. His readers were left in no doubt that this composer was the ‘world-famous

man’ whose St John Passion and whose more recent works all displayed the same

faults. In his Enquiry, Mattheson attacked no other composer as explicitly as this, ex-

cept for Stricker, who was ‘a star of no great magnitude’. [Addition 2016: Further

clearly identifiable allusions to works by Handel in Mattheson’s Enquiry are the aria

Venti, turbini, prestate from Rinaldo (Critica Musica I, p.218, and II, p.27), performed

1715 and 1723 in Hamburg, and Amor, nel mio penar from Flavio (Critica Musica II,

p.42): ‘Wenn/ z. E. in einer Aria die Worte: non m’ingannar, auf lauter betrieglich-

formirte intervalla gerichtet werden’), premiered in 1723 in London.]

Now, why should Mattheson have included all these explicit and implicit – but al-

ways recognisable – allusions towards Handel in his Enquiry about a certain Passion, if

the latter had nothing to do with Handel? And if, further, the Enquiry concerned not

only the old St John Passion, but also, albeit tacitly, a central work of sacred music in

Hamburg, the Brockes Passion in Handel’s setting, then there can be no doubt that all

these references form an intentional system of interconnected hints. This leads us to a

final supposition: in 1721, Telemann succeeded the old-fashioned cantor at the Johanne-

um and musical director of the five main churches in Hamburg, Joachim Gerstenbüttel

(1647–1721), only three months after the Joachim’s death at the age of 74, and it ap-

pears that Telemann’s Brockes Passion was a decisive step towards this appointment.

It is not known whether Telemann had Gerstenbüttel’s post in mind when he set the

Hamburg senator’s text in Frankfurt am Main in 1716. But the fact that both Telemann

and Handel sent copies of the score to Hamburg and that both settings as well as those

of Keiser and Mattheson were performed in Hamburg on four evenings in Lent 1719

was more than a coincidence. Apparently the performances of the Brockes Passion in

1719 were an unofficial competition for the chief musical post in Hamburg during the

lifetime of the strange and unpopular cantor, Gerstenbüttel.60

As there was no opera company in London from 1717 to 1720, it is likely that Han-

del, too, composed his Brockes Passion – which served no useful purpose in England –

with the intention of applying for a highly regarded and secure post in the only German

town which had a strong operatic tradition.61 It is not known if a serious offer of em-

ployment was made to Handel by Hamburg. In 1721, when Gerstenbüttel finally died,

Handel was certainly no longer interested in moving from London to Hamburg. Euro-

pean musical history might have changed if Gerstenbüttel had died two or three years

earlier.

Who composed the St John Passion?

As often with questions of authenticity, there is no definite proof that Handel wrote the

work, but there is much circumstantial evidence, particularly that found in Mattheson’s

Critica Musica. The wording of Mattheson’s 60-page Enquiry and the effort he took to

compose Das Lied des Lammes suggest that the author of the St John Passion was a

leading musical authority of the time, in Mattheson’s own words, someone ‘whom eve-

ryone applauds and should applaud’. When Mattheson wrote the Enquiry in about 1724,

only three composers could fit such a description: Keiser, Telemann and Handel.62

15

Mattheson always treated Keiser with friendly respect. He had left Hamburg in 1718,

after the opera director, Sauerbrey, became bankrupt, and until Keiser’s appointment as

Mattheson’s successor to the post of musical director at the cathedral in 1728, Keiser

was struggling to support himself in other towns in Germany and Denmark. It is un-

likely that Mattheson would have harshly attacked him, for Keiser was the senior and

most important composer of the Hamburg Opera and it would have been regarded as

tasteless and cowardly if Mattheson had singled him out as an example ‘to remind us

that the old errors still happen here every day’. It would also have contradicted Matthe-

son’s own opinion of Keiser, for he tells us in his Portal of Honour that Keiser was the

first composer beside himself to set a text to music ‘according to oratory and reason’,

dividing it into understandable grammatical units.63

The relationship between Mattheson and Telemann was more complex.64 From 1721

Telemann was a colleague of Mattheson’s in Hamburg, in the much more important post

of cantor at the Johanneum and the five main churches, and from 1722 he was also mu-

sical director at the Gänsemarkt theatre. Apparently, Mattheson was anxious to avoid

confrontation with Telemann. When Mattheson attacked the poet Weichmann for alter-

ing Postel’s libretto to the opera Gensericus, Mattheson withdrew his criticism as soon

as he was told that the changes had been made by Telemann. Mattheson then declared

that the composer, but not the poet, was allowed to change an existing text.65

Handel had already been the target of criticism by Mattheson in the first part of the

Critica Musica over the subject of Handel’s ‘borrowings’. In the index to volume one,

the following titles appear: Handel has a good memory and Stolen music. Mattheson

considered that to rearrange one’s own music was almost plagiarism, a criticism which

he twice repeated in his Enquiry: first in question 9, with the example from Muzio

Scevola (an opera which was often performed in Hamburg from 1723 onwards), and at

the beginning of Part II in an insulting fashion, when approaching the central thesis of

his Enquiry: the relationship between text and music. From 1718 onwards, Handel’s op-

eras were popular in Hamburg, and after Telemann had taken over as director in 1722,

their popularity increased.66

In 1723, when Mattheson composed his version of the St John Passion and launched

his Enquiry, Handel was at the height of fame. We do not know whether, after Gersten-

büttel’s death in 1721, his post was offered to Handel, but in any case, the resources that

he was able to call upon when producing operas in London would have been unavaila-

ble in Hamburg. Mattheson, on the other hand, was the poorly paid musical director at

Hamburg cathedral.67 He had lost the competition to become Gerstenbüttel’s successor,

and – even worse – important fellow citizens such as Weichmann considered his music

inferior to that of Telemann and Handel. Mattheson’s new setting of the St John Passion

and his Enquiry, a justification for the Passion, were acts of self-assertion and self-de-

fence: an attempt to demonstrate that he could compose better sacred music than his ri-

vals. It was his way of appealing against the critics’ unfavourable opinion of his Brockes

Passion and an attempt to demonstrate his conviction that modern church music should

be based on reason and good taste, unlike the merely fashionable art of opera.68

When Mattheson’s Enquiry is considered alongside his polemic against Bokemeyer,

and is set within the broader context of musical life in Hamburg, it becomes plausible

16

that Handel was the ‘world-famous person’, the ‘pope of all music’, who continued to

make the ‘errors’ that had appeared in his earlier St John Passion. Only in relation to

Handel do the surviving fragments of evidence make sense and form a consistent whole.

Notes 1 In his article Handel and the idea of an oratorio, Anthony Hicks concludes: ‘A setting of the Passion of St John,

based on the Gospel text with interpolated texts by C. H. Postel, has long been attributed to Handel ... The attribution

is almost certainly false, but the true composer has yet to be convincingly identified.’ (in The Cambridge Companion

to Handel, ed. D. Burrows, Cambridge 1997, p.310). A significant account of the problems surrounding the author-

ship of this St John Passion can be found in New Mattheson Studies, ed. G. J. Buelow and H. J. Marx, Cambridge

University Press, 1983, in ch.6 ‘Johann Mattheson’s “Inquiring Composer”’, by Beekman C. Cannon, who’s conclu-

sions differ from mine. 2 F. Chrysander, G. F. Händel, Leipzig 1858–1867, vol.1, pp.64–70 3 J. Mattheson, Critica Musica, Hamburg 1722–25 (Reprint: Amsterdam 1964), vol.2, pp. 1-29, 33-56 (Des fragenden

Componisten Zweytes Verhör). A new reprint with an introduction by Sven Hiemke has recently been published (Laa-

ber 2003) 4 G. F. Händels Werke: Ausgabe der Deutschen Händelgesellschaft, ed. F. W. Chrysander, Leipzig 1858–1902, vol.9 5 D. Rendall ‘Is Handel’s St. John Passion genuine?’ in: Zeitschrift der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft 6 (1905),

pp.143–9. Keiser is also mentioned as the author by C. Hogwood: ‘The Passion setting to a text by Postel, first per-

formed in Hamburg on Good Friday 1704, is now thought to be the work of Keiser, director of the opera house.’

(Handel, London 1988, p.25) 6 Hallische Händel-Ausgabe ed. Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft, series 1, vol.2: Passion nach dem Evangelis-

ten Johannes, ed. K. G. Fellerer, Kassel 1964 7 B. Baselt Johann Sebastian Bach und Georg Friedrich Händel, Halle (Saale) 1976, pp.58–66 8 Critica Musica II, p.4 9 This can be seen especially in question 50, where the opening chorus of Part II is discussed. This chorus appears

only in Mattheson’s Das Lied des Lammes, and not in Handel’s setting 10 Critica Musica I, p.45 11 H. Kümmerling, ‘Difficile est satyram non scribere’ in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Oratoriums seit Händel. Fest-

schrift Günther Massenkeil, ed. R. Cadenbach, Bonn 1986, pp.57–65 12 H. J. Marx, ‘... eines welt-berühmten Mannes gewisse Passion’ in Musica 41 (1987), pp.311–6 13 J. Mattheson Das Beschützte Orchestre, oder desselben Zweyte Eröffnung, Hamburg 1717 14 See. R. Strohm, article ‘Almira’ in Pipers Enzyklopädie des Musiktheaters, ed. C. Dahlhaus and S. Döhring, vol.2,

München 1987, p.667 15 As late as 1739, in his Der vollkommene Capellmeister, Mattheson discusses problems of correct declamation, with

examples from the earlier St. John Passion (part II ch.8, pp.176 ff.) 16 Mattheson Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte, art. Händel, p.93 17 Critica Musica I, p.243 18 See Hallische Händel-Ausgabe series II, vol.1: Almira, Königin von Kastilien, ed. D. Schröder, Kassel 1994, Pref-

ace, p.xiv 19 Critica Musica I, pp.235–53, 257–87, 289–319, 321–65 20 Critica Musica I, p.247 21 The Laudate pueri HWV 236, preserved in Bokemeyer’s handwriting, was probably composed before Handel’s

departure from Hamburg (see Baselt, Händel-Handbuch, vol.2, Leipzig 1984, p.660). In any case, it does not contain

the stylistic features to which Bokemeyer alludes 22 Bokemeyer certainly knew Handel’s setting of the Brockes Passion, but it is hard to imagine that he would have

used the phrase Kirchen-Stück (which normally implied liturgical use) for this non-liturgical ‘passion oratorio’. Mat-

theson calls it an oratorium (Critica Musica I, p. 288), an expression which he did not use to describe the St John

Passion 23 Critica Musica I, p.288 24 Mattheson presents the earlier St John Passion as a composition typical of about 1700, much as we might call a

composition ‘a work of the 1980s’, even if we knew the exact year of composition 25 See Marx ‘... eines welt-berühmten Mannes gewisse Passion’, p.313; Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed.

F. Blume, vol.2, Kassel 1952, col.79

17

26 C. F. Hunold, Theatralische, Galante und Geistliche Gedichte von Menantes, Hamburg 1706, appendix (Geistliche

Gedichte), p.34 ff 27 The Carl von Ossietzky Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg owns a volume with Passion librettos from

1678 to 1712 (sign. A/70002) 28 S/654, vol.II, pp.615ff, quoted from J. Kremer Joachim Gerstenbüttel (1647–1721) im Spannungsfeld von Oper

und Kirche, Hamburg 1997, p.189 29 S/654, vol.III, p.37; quoted from Kremer. Kremer reads ‘14ten Capit.’ which makes no sense and is apparently a

misreading 30 The fact that this seemed worth noting in the chronicle shows how unusual it was. The St John Passions for the ca-

thedral started at the 18th chapter 31 Hunold Theatralische, Galante und Geistliche Gedichte, Hamburg 1706, p.2; see also H. Frederichs Das Verhältnis

von Text und Musik in den Brockespassionen Keisers, Händels, Telemanns und Matthesons, Munich and Salzburg

1975, p.60 32 This is the 19th chapter of St John’s gospel. Marx’s assumption that the manuscript was only a fragment is incor-

rect. In his Critica Musica Mattheson quotes these words as the beginning of the Passion, and in his Song of the

Lamb, after an introductory chorale he begins with the same words 33 The reference in Mattheson’s Der vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg 1739, reprint Kassel 1995) only concerns

problems of accentuation in recitative 34 Critica Musica II, q.14, p.23 35 Ibid q.16, p.24 36 Ibid p.22, referring to chorus no.5 37 Ibid q.5, p.13 ff 38 Ibid p.12 39 Ibid 40 Ibid p.3 ff 41 Ibid p.5 42 Ibid p.11 43 Ibid p.12 44 C. F. Weichmann, Teutsche Anmerkungen über Herrn Matthesons Antwort auf sein am 28 Julii an Denselben abge-

lassenes Schreiben, Hamburg 1722, fol.A3r. Mattheson's letter is dated 31 July 1722 45 In performances of passion oratorios – probably his Der Blut-rünstige Kelter-Treter und von der Erden erhöhete

Menschen-Sohn from 1721, but possibly even in the Brockes Passion – Mattheson had tried to imitate the crowing of

the cock with an oboe, probably during a rest immediately before or after the corresponding words in the recitative.

This is substantiated by a printed polemic against Mattheson from 1728 where we read: Ach! daß er doch mit Petro

bitterlich zu weinen anfinge/ wenn er an sein ehedem in der Paßion mit einer Hautbois aufgeführtes Hahnen

Geschrey gedencket! (in Ein paar derbe Musicalisch-Patriotische Ohrfeigen dem nichts weniger als Musicalischen

Patrioten und nichts weniger als Patriotischen Musico/ Salv. venia Hn. Mattheson ... von zween Brauchbahren Virtu-

osen Musandern und Harmonio, s.l. 1728, p.6) 46 It should be remembered that the crowing of the cock is mentioned neither in ‘Handel’s’ St John Passion nor in

Mattheson’s Das Lied des Lammes, as both begin at the 19th chapter of St John’s gospel 47 Mattheson Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte, art. ‘Händel’, p.96 48 Ibid 49 See above, note 45 50 See Frederichs, Das Verhältnis von Text und Musik in den Brockespassionen Keisers, Händels, Telemanns und Mat-

thesons, p.56 51 See above, note 38 52 Two versions of the overture for Handel’s Brockes Passion are extant. The first movement of the presumed earlier

version was incorporated by Handel into his Concerti grossi op.3 no.2. In any case, both versions would have been

regarded by Mattheson as long sinfonias 53 Critica Musica II, q.8, p.18 54 Ibid q.9, p.21 55 Ibid 56 Critica Musica I, p.71ff 57 See H. J. Marx and D. Schröder Die Hamburger Gänsemarkt-Oper. Katalog der Textbücher (1678–1748), Laaber

1995, p.484ff 58 To ensure that even foreign readers remembered who the world-famous composer was, at the end

18

of the same fascicle Mattheson inserted the following announcement: From London, the 29th October 1724. The most

recent opera made by the world-famous Kapellmeister Handel is named Tamerlano and will be premièred at the local

Haymarket Theatre on 11th of November (Critica Musica II, p.29) 59 Critica Musica II, p.33 60 See J. Kremer Das norddeutsche Kantorat im 18. Jahrhundert, Kassel 1995, p.93 61 H. J. Marx Händels Oratorien, Oden und Serenaten, Göttingen 1998, p.85 62 Der Lehrreichen Meister-Schule Zweyter Unterricht, Critica Musica II, p.116 63 Mattheson, Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte, art. ‘Keiser’, p.129 64 See H. J. Marx ‘Telemann aus der Sicht Matthesons’ in Telemann und seine Freunde, pp.36–42 65 Weichmann quotes a letter from Mattheson to him in French in which we learn of this (see

note 44) 66 See Marx and Schröder Die Hamburger Gänsemarkt-Oper, op. cit., p.476 ff. 67 In the article ‘Keiser’ in his Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte, Mattheson complains about the low income of the post

(p.130) 68 See A. Forchert ‘Mattheson und die Kirchenmusik’ in Gattung und Werk in der Musikgeschichte Norddeutschlands

und Skandinaviens, ed. F. Krummacher and H. Schwab, Kassel, 1982, p.121ff

Literature since 2005:

J. H. Roberts ‘Placing “Handel’s St. John Passion”’ in Händel-Jahrbuch 51 (2005), pp.153–177

R. Kleinertz ‘Eine “gewisse Passion eines weltberühmten Mannes”: Händels Brockes-Passion HWV 48 im Spiegel

von Matthesons Kritik’ in Händel-Jahrbuch 51 (2005), pp.179–209

R. Kleinertz ‘Zum Problem der Entlehnungen bei Händel am Beispiel der Brockes-Passion und der ersten Fassung

von Esther’ in Händel-Jahrbuch 55 (2009), pp.195–208

R. Kleinertz ‘Johannespassion (HWV deest)’ in Händel-Lexikon, ed. H.-J. Marx, Laaber, 2011, pp.408–410

R. Kleinertz ‘Händels Ausbildung in Deutschland’ in Recerca Musicològica 20/21 (2013), pp.83–10

R. Kleinertz ‘Händel’ in Lexikon der Kirchenmusik, ed. G. Massenkeil and M. Zywietz, Laaber, 2013 (Enzyklopädie

der Kirchenmusik 6), vol.1, pp.484–498

Illustrations:

Illus.1. Johann Mattheson’s Critica Musica vol.2 p.1, printed in Hamburg in 1725. The

title reads ‘Part 5. The Enquiring Composer’s First Enquiry about a certain Passion’

(‘Des fragenden Componisten Erstes Verhör über eine gewisse Passion’). Reproduced

with permission from the facsimile edition, Amsterdam, Knuf, 1964.

Illus.2. Johann Mattheson’s Das Lied des Lammes (The Song of the Lamb): first move-

ment, Sonatina, p.1 of the autograph (formerly Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Ham-

burg Carl von Ossietzky, sign. ND VI 143, since 1945 lost). Reproduced with permis-

sion from a set of negative photostats in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale

University,

Misc. Ms. 360.

Illus.3. Johann Mattheson’s Das Lied des Lammes, p.4. A short recitative, sung by the

evangelist, precedes an aria. From the autograph, as above.

Illus.4. Title page of the manuscript of the anonymous St John Passion, written by a

later hand (after 1739). It reads: ‘Passions-Cantate von G. F. Händel. NB. Es ist dieses

diejenige Passion, die Mattheson in seiner Critica musica Tom. II. unter dem Titel des

19

fragenden Componisten, auch theils im Volkommnen Capellmeister, p.176 u. sonst, we-

gen des fehlerhaften Ausdrucks ziemlich scharf beurtheilet hat. Sie soll doch von Hän-

dels Arbeiten, vielleicht von den ersten, seyn.’ Reproduced by courtesy of the Staatsbib-

liothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv,

Mus. Ms. 9001.

Illus.5. First page of the anonymous St John Passion. A short sinfonia is followed by a

brief recitative sung by the evangelist, and an aria. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (as il-

lus.4).