G. P. Telemann - Brockes-Passion

Georg Philipp Telemann(1681-1767) started composing spontaneously as a secondary-school student.  He learned by copying his teachers' compositions and those of important composers of his time, but he never studied composition systematically. Following his mother’s wishes he entered university to study law, in Leipzig in 1701. A year later he was commissioned to compose spiritual cantatas for the Thomaskirche and he became Musical Director of the Leipzig Opera. He was then appointed City Director of Music in Frankfurt and later Kantor of Hamburg’s Johanneum and Director of local Opera. Telemann’s particular interest lay in founding and re-organising the city’s layman musical associations, called collegia musica, to whom many of his compositions were dedicated. Although probably not as original as Bach or Händel, he was a very skilful and talented composer. He is regarded as the leading personality of the lighter, late-Baroque style, often called Rococo. Although he mastered Bach’s style of counterpoint very well, he didn’t use it profusely and he was not afraid to compose more common, lighter music for the general public.

The term ‘passion’ is used to describe the story of Jesus Christ’s suffering and its setting to music is usually dramatised. Such dramatic representation of ‘passion’ is documented as early as the 9^th century and the distribution of the story’s roles (documented later) played an important role in the future development of polyphony. Thanks to later historical developments it became possible to compose ‘passion’ with texts from the Gospel and new poetic texts on the subject. During the Baroque era the writing of ‘passion’ adapted to current trends and used various Baroque elements such as arias, recitatives and basso continuo accompaniment. As a result of this synthesis a new genre, the ‘Passion Oratorio’, was created.

Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680 ̶ 1747), a contemporary of Telemann, was among the most highly regarded narrators of Jesus Christ’s. His libretto for the passion oratorio Der für die Sünden der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus (Jesus Who Suffered and Died for the Sins of the World) was written in 1712 and in the years immediately following it was set to music by more than ten composers. Telemann composed more than forty works on the subject of ‘passion’. The first composition of this type, the Oratorio set to Brockes’ text, was performed by the composer and his Frankfurt collegium musica in 1716. His version underlines the deep spirituality of the Brockes’ libretto, but at the same time, like his contemporaries, Telemann was not immune to the influence of the fashionable operatic style of composing.