Johannes Passion BWV 245

John Eliot Gardiner has called the St John Passion, which celebrates its 300th anniversary since its first performance (Leipzig, 7 April 1724, on the occasion of Bach’s first Passionmusik at Nikolaikirche), “as bold and complex an amalgam of storytelling and meditation, religion and politics, music and theology, as there has ever been.” A work perfectly emblematic of its era, imbued with Lutheran preaching, the Johannes-Passion is also an absolute musical and ethical monument, one whose message appears today, three centuries later, purely intact.