St. Mark Passion BWV 247

In its various reconstructed and completed version, Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Mark Passion BWV 247 occupies a fixed place in the pre-Easter concert repertoire. As the third of what were originally five Passions, not only was it the latest to be written, it is also the most enigmatic of the known Good Friday works composed by the Kantor of the Thomasschule.

The fundamental approach behind the present version of the St. Mark Passion is to attempt to get as close as possible stylistically to the performed versions of 1731 and 1744. It is hoped that in the service of church music practice, this completereconstruction will thus help to transform the third of Bach’s Passion works into a stylistically unified whole.