What is St Matthew Passion?
[[File:Bach 1750.jpg|thumb|Bach about 1750]] The '''St Matthew Passion''' ({{lang-de|Matthäuspassion}}) is a musical composition written by [[Johann Sebastian Bach]]. The words tell the story of [[Jesus]]’s death on the [[crucifix|cross]] as told in chapters 26 and 27 of the [[Gospel of Matthew]] in the [[Bible]]. The work is for a choir, solo voices and orchestra. Both the choir and the orchestra are divided into two sections: Chorus 1 and Chorus 2, Orchestra 1 and Orchestra 2. The words are from the Bible and by the poet [[Picander]]. There were other composers who also wrote works called ''St Matthew Passion'', the most famous being [[Heinrich Schütz]]. However, Bach’s ''St Matthew Passion '' is thought by many musicians to be the greatest choral work ever written. Two other very great choral works by Bach are his ''[[St John Passion]] '' and ''[[Mass in B minor]] ''. == History == The tradition of singing the story of Jesus' passion during Holy Week (the week before [[Easter]]) goes back many hundreds of years to a time when a [[priest]] would sing the story instead of speaking it. Later a tradition developed of letting it be sung by a choir. During the [[Baroque music|Baroque period]] the Passion oratorio developed. Bach's St. Matthew Passion, written in 1727, is the most famous work in this tradition. It was probably first performed on [[Good Friday]] (11 April) 1727 in the [[Thomaskirche]] in [[Leipzig]], where Bach was [[Kapellmeister]]. He made some changes to it by 1736 and performed it again on 30 March 1736. After that it was almost completely forgotten until long after Bach’s death. Even Bach’s music in general was forgotten by most people. In 1829 the composer [[Felix Mendelssohn]] discovered the music of the ''St Matthew Passion '' and decided to perform a short version of it in [[Berlin]]. It immediately became extremely popular with the public and from then on Bach has always remained recognized as one of the greatest of all composers. == The music == The words of Bach’s ''St Matthew Passion