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In Christian music, a Passion is a Musical setting of the Passion of Christ. Liturgy, most Passions were intended to be performed as part of church services in the Holy Week.
Passion settings developed from Middle Ages Plainsong readings of the Gospel texts relating Christ's Passion, to which later polyphony settings were added. , another tradition that originated in the Middle Ages, could be provided with music such as hymns, contributing to Passion as a genre in music.
While Passion music in Catholic countries had to compete with other devotions such as the Stations of the Cross, the Improperia and Tenebrae, in Protestantism Germany settings of the Gospels became a focal point of Passiontide services, with Passion cantatas (and later Passions in oratorio format) performed on Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Its best known examples, the Bach Passions, date from the first half of the 18th century.
Later musical settings of the Passion of Christ, such as the Jesus Christ Superstar Rock opera, or Arvo Pärt's Passio refer to these earlier Christian traditions to varying degrees.
The passion began to be intoned (rather than just spoken) in the Middle Ages, at least as early at the 8th century. 9th-century manuscripts have "litterae significativae" indicating interpretive chant, and later manuscript begin to specify exact notes to be sung. By the 13th century different singers were used for different characters in the narrative, a practice which became fairly universal by the 15th century, when polyphonic settings of the turba passages began to appear also ( Turba, while literally meaning "crowd," is used in this case to mean any passage in which more than one speaker speaks simultaneously). The formula of the present Graduale Romanum was the most widespread, with Christ singing in the lowest register and Synagogus (denoting not only the high priest but all characters besides Christ) singing higher than the evangelist/narrator. In Spain a Toledan tone with the evangelist's part recto tono (on a monotone) was used in Castile and a Zaragoza tone with a bass evangelist and a florid tenor Christus was used in much of Aragon, where the Roman tone also had a foothold in Valencia.
In the later 15th century a number of new styles began to emerge:
In Roman Catholicism settings of (parts of) the Tenebrae service however became the leading format for music to commemorate Christ's Passion and death during Holy Week, with for example Leçons de ténèbres, Tenebrae responsories, and settings of the Miserere psalm. Notable examples of such music, like Carlo Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsoria, are sometimes characterized as "a Passion in all but name".Alex Ross. "Gesualdo: 'The Prince of Darkness'" in The New Yorker. December 19 and 26, 2011.
A later development of the Catholic passion was the reflective passion-oratorio such as Metastasio's Italian libretto La passione di Gesù Cristo set by Antonio Caldara, Antonio Salieri and many other composers between 1730 and 1812.
Latin passions continued in parallel with the style of Metastasio, often set by minor composers such as little known Carlo Sturla, music master at the Convent of Santa Brigida, who also set a Latin passion in 18th Century operatic style, Passio di Venerdì Santo, for the Oratory of St Philip Neri in Genoa in 1736.
Thomas Strutz wrote a passion (1664) with arias for Jesus himself, pointing to the standard oratorio tradition of Schütz and Carissimi. The practice of using recitative for the Evangelist (rather than plainsong) was a development of court composers in northern Germany, such as Johann Meder and Schütz, and only crept into church compositions at the end of the 17th century. The recitative was used for dramatic expression.
In the 17th century came the development of “oratorio” passions which led to J.S. Bach’s passions, accompanied by instruments, with interpolated instrumental interludes (often called "" or "") or with interpolated texts (then called “madrigal” movements) such as other Scripture passages, Latin , chorale arias, and more. Such settings were created by Bartholomäus Gesius and Heinrich Schütz.
The best known Protestant musical settings of the Passion are by Johann Sebastian Bach, who, according to his obituary, wrote five Passions in his lifetime. Two have survived to the present day: one based on the Gospel of John (the St John Passion), the other on the Gospel of Matthew (the St Matthew Passion). Additionally, a libretto for the St Mark Passion survives. Although Bach's settings are now among the most popular Passions today, they were rarely performed during his lifetime.
The Passion continued to be very popular in Protestant Germany in the 18th century, with Bach's second son Carl Philipp Emanuel composing over twenty settings. Major composers of passions included Graun, Telemann, Reinhard Keiser, Stölzel, Mattheson and Handel - these last five also composing after the text of Barthold Heinrich Brockes.
In 2000 Helmuth Rilling and the Internationale Bachakademie commissioned four modern composers to compose passions on the four Gospels; Matthew was allocated to Tan Dun - Water Passion After St Matthew, Mark to Osvaldo Golijov - La Pasión Según San Marcos, Luke to Wolfgang Rihm - Deus Passus, and John to Sofia Gubaidulina - St John Passion (Страсти по Иоанну).
More recent examples include James MacMillan's Seven Last Words from the Cross (1993), the Passion According to St. Matthew (1997) by Mark Alburger, The Passion According to the Four Evangelists by Scott King The Passion and Resurrection According To St. Mark
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Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar (book and lyrics by Tim Rice), and Stephen Schwartz's Godspell both contain elements of the traditional passion accounts. Another modern version is by Adrian Snell (1980). Peter Gabriel's score to Martin Scorsese's 1988 film the Last Temptation of Christ was released as an album under the title .
A notable work in Latin is Arvo Pärt's Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem ( The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to John) of 1982.
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