马太受难曲
In 1723, Bach moved with his family to Leipzig, a prosperous commercial city where Bach had accessed to certain creative freedom. To earn a living, he played a piece of his own cantata (large scale song cycle with more than one movement) in front of the councilmen, who admired his talent very much and handed him the position of head-musician of the church. Besides, he served as music director for three additional churches and in this way earned a good income. Meanwhile, he composed a large number of musical works for church, among which was the most famous St. Matthew Passion.
1723年，巴赫举家迁往莱比锡。这是一个繁荣的商业城市，巴赫在这里获得了一定的创作自由。为了谋生，他演奏了一首自创的教会康塔塔（多乐章的大型声乐套曲），市议员们听了非常钦佩他的才华，就把圣托马斯教堂乐长的职位交给他，此外他还给其他三个教会当音乐指导，有了较好的经济收入。在此期间，他为教堂写了许多音乐作品，《马太受难曲》就是其中最为有名的一部。
St. Matthew Passion, an unprecedented religious musical play, was composed for the middle part of the evensong of Good Friday in Leipzig. The accomplishment of St. Matthew Passion by Bach is probably in 1727. The time and place of its premiere, perhaps can be traced back to April 11th of the same year and St. Thomas Church, established so far is April 15th, 1729 and the same site. It is believed that the piece had been put on the stage more than once when Bach was alive. The script of it is provided by Heinrich (pen name Picander), cooperated with Bach for many times, though it has been suggested that Bach himself took part in the finalization of the words. The vast majority of Picander's scripts came from passages in Gospel of Matthew. The content, as it was published, was printed in regular type, while the words on the Holy Bible in Bach's manuscript were written in red ink. The rest lyrics were extracted from hymns (also known as Chant) generally used by German Lutheran Church of the day. Bach took use of 13 hymns for St. Matthew Passion and published in Regular Script. These hymns are familiar to every Protestant, and therefore the audience joined choir in the chorus whenever it came to one of them. The music was separated into two movements and 78 pieces, it took 3 hours normally to finish them all. In those days, priest came out to preach between the two parts and thus prolonged half a hour of the duration.
《马太受难曲》是一部规模空前的宗教音乐剧，它是为莱比锡受难节的晚祷中间部分而作的。巴赫大概是在1727年写成的《马太受难曲》，也许于同年的4月11日在圣托马斯教堂首演过，但目前能够确定的最早的演出时间是1729年4月15日，演出地点也是圣托马斯教堂。可以这样认为，在巴赫活着的时候，这部作品不止上演过一次。这部作品的文字脚本是亨利希（笔名皮堪德）提供的，此人与巴赫有过多次合作，但有可靠的证据表明，巴赫亲自参与了歌词的最后定稿。皮堪德的脚本取材最多的是《圣经·马太福音》中的部分章节，出版时这些内容用正常字体印刷；在巴赫的原稿中，所有《圣经》上的字句都用红色墨水书写。还有一部分歌词来自当时德国路德教会所通用的众赞歌（又名圣咏合唱），巴赫在《马太受难曲》中选用了13首众赞歌，在出版时用小正楷体印刷。这些众赞歌曲调凡是新教徒都会唱，因此在演唱《马太受难曲》时，每逢演唱到众赞歌时，全体听众都会和圣诗班一同高唱。这部乐曲分为两大乐章，共78支曲子，正常情况下需要三个小时才能全部演奏完毕，而当时在两个部分之间，牧师要出来布道，这就增加了半个小时。
The first movement of St. Matthew Passion begins with solemn and stirring orchestra and chorus. Having been betrayed by Judas, Jesus was sentenced to death and paraded in front of the crowd. Jesus adhered to his faith and set a lofty moral example for the world. The spectators on the street were deeply affected and sang the praises of the savior in a grief mood. The second movement starts with the story that Jesus was going to be tortured. People made applications to the executioner to let him go but was denied. With the music of tragic aria, recitative accompanied by bells and solemn chorus, Jesus was put to death and then resurrected, therein the music is gradually driven to its climax. What follows is the threnody by the cross and chorus in the cemetery, they combined fill the music with a mood of indignity, grief and pity. Finally, the music concluded in extremely sacred carols.
《马太受难曲》的第一乐章以悲壮的管弦乐与合唱开始。耶稣被犹大出卖而被判处死刑，游街示众。耶稣坚持自己的信念，为世人树立起一个崇高而无私的道德榜样，沿街观看的人们深受感动，以痛苦悲愤的心情歌颂救世主。第二乐章开始后，耶稣即将受刑，人们哀告刽子手停止行刑，却被拒绝。在悲剧性的咏叹调、钟声伴奏的宣叙调和庄严肃穆的合唱曲中，耶稣先是被处死，随后复活升天，受难曲逐渐被推向高潮。接下来是十字架旁的哀歌、墓地的合唱，使这部作品充满了愤怒、哀伤、惋惜的气氛，最后在极其神圣的颂歌中结束全曲。
The orchestration of St. Matthew Passion was bulky. It entailed 9 soloists, 2 large-scale choirs, 2 orchestras, 2 organs and instruments such as violin, flute and oboe. Taking advantage of his position as the head-musician of St. Thomas Church, Bach took great pains for its performing. He not only recruited undergraduates from Leipzig University to join in the chorus, but roped in every music talents in Bach's family to take part in its debut. At the premiere, Bach took full advantage of the sound reinforcement of the building, arranged 2 adult choirs 15 meters apart at each side of the altar, coordinated 2 orchestras with 2 organs, and put children's choir in the corridor to get the ensemble into a giant stereo ambience. The performance was unprecedented though unfortunately without any details left.
《马太受难曲》的演出阵容编制很庞大，全曲需由九个独唱演员、两个大型合唱团、两个乐队、两部管风琴及提琴、长笛、双簧管等乐器。巴赫利用自己的圣托马斯教堂乐长的地位，为它的演出费尽心机，不仅动员了莱比锡大学的学生参加合唱，还把巴赫家族里的音乐人才全都拉来参加演出。首演时，巴赫充分利用教堂建筑本身良好的扩音效果，将两个成人合唱团相隔15米分列在圣托马斯教堂圣坛两侧，让两支乐队与两台管风琴相互配合，又把童声合唱团安排在教堂的回廊上，从而构成了一个巨大的立体声环境。这次演出盛况空前，只可惜没有留下详细的记载。
Bach showed his brilliance and virtuosity as a composer mastering themes, creating atmosphere and portraying characters in this epic opus, it makes brilliant and beautiful of it among which a good many songs stood out to be splendid, melodious music pieces. For instance, the 21st song shows obvious lyricism and shines with unique temperament. Acting as a pivotal role in the whole passion and creating a lofty, touching atmosphere, the material of this aria came neatly from the wounded head, a secular passion song in the 16th century. The first song as a tragic overture and the final 78th one echoed each other, only the mood of the latter is not mournful anymore, all sores turned into quiet prayers, “rest in peace! Rest in peace, you weary body!”
巴赫在这部史诗般的作品中，显示出了驾驭主题、营造环境、刻画人物的精绝才华与高超技巧，使整部作品精彩纷呈，美不胜收，其中的很多首分曲，都成为美妙杰出的音乐作品。比如第21分曲的音乐表现出明显的抒情性，而且闪烁着独特的光芒与气质。特别巧妙的是，这个咏叹调的音乐素材来自16世纪一首受难世俗歌曲《受创伤的头》，它形成了整部受难曲的中心地位的圣咏合唱，营造出一种崇高、感人的气氛。第1分曲作为一部悲剧的序章，与最后的第78分曲形成首尾呼应，只是后边的情感不再是悲哀的，一切痛苦都已化成平静地祈祷，“安息吧！安息吧，你那疲惫的圣体！”
Chorus plays a key role in St. Matthew Passion, every choral passage, the acoustics of which is remarkably clean and transparent, the singing natural, the expression implicit, the sentiment objective, is absolutely lyric and successfully conveys a kind of pious religious sentiment. Bach set two orchestras against two choirs dramatically and let the chant themes drift freely upon them. At the end of the music, Bach depicted the intricate feelings of people when Jesus was being buried with two choirs and eight parts. The deep, broad bass voice seems like a wide stretch of riverbed, the solemn melody rushing though not unscrupulous torrents flowing freely upon it and full of power.
合唱在《马太受难曲》中占有重要的地位，所有的合唱段落都是纯粹抒情性的，音响效果异常干净、透明，唱法自然，表现含蓄，情调客观，成功地唱出了虔诚的宗教感情。巴赫用两组管弦乐和两组合唱造成戏剧性的对立，让圣咏的主题在它们之上自由飘荡。乐曲结束部分的合唱使用两个合唱队、八个声部，描写耶稣下葬时人们的复杂情感。宽厚的低声部，好似广阔的河床；庄严的旋律，好似奔腾而不恣意的流水，在上面自由地流淌，充满了力量。
Since the Renaissance, not a few musicians endeavored to inject secular element into the church music but in vain. Leipzig was the base camp of German Protestantism. Bach was a devout Protestant. St. Matthew Passion originated by him is not for the use of stage, but as a way in tandem with religious practice, and for this reason it is very pragmatic and with powerful religious overtones. Still, Bach, instead of adhering to the tradition and commandment of religious music, used the feature of aria and recitative in Italian opera for reference, urged the greater use of instruments and competed vocal music with them as they are used in concerto. It not only increased dramatic color to the music significantly, but mingled secularism with religious music. To this kind of music the contemporary church personage and worshipers were not used. A funny story had been occurred at the time when St. Matthew Passion made its debut. With the chant started, a few notables and ladies sang in chorus, but every one of them looked at each other surprisingly and asked, “What to do next?” when the dramatic music came. A senior blue-blooded widow said, “Boys and girls, may God bless you! It is as if we are acting comic opera on the stage......”
从文艺复兴时期开始，有不少音乐家试图往教堂音乐里灌注世俗化的内容，但往往不成功。莱比锡是德国新教的大本营，巴赫是虔诚的新教信徒，他创作的这部《马太受难曲》并非用作舞台演出，而是用来配合教堂礼仪，是实用性很强的音乐，必然带有浓重的宗教色彩。但是巴赫并没有完全遵循宗教音乐的传统和戒律，而是借鉴了意大利歌剧的咏叹调和宣叙调的特点，更多地使用器乐，用人声与器乐展开协奏曲式的竞奏，这就大大地增加了音乐的戏剧性色彩，在宗教音乐里杂糅进了世俗化的内容。对于这种音乐，当时的教会人士和笃信宗教的人很不习惯。《马太受难曲》首演时，就曾发生过这样一件趣事。当圣咏曲响起时，一些显贵和贵妇们也随声附和地唱起来。但当富于戏剧效果的音乐响起来时，他们都吃惊你看着我，我看着你，互相问道：“下面该怎么办？”一个年老的名门贵族寡妇说道：“孩子们，上帝保佑你们！我们好像是在台上演喜歌剧......”
Spending his life in an age when Enlightenment Thought began to stir, Bach had already had the ability of thinking the relationships between humanity, religion and nature reasonably. For his reason, he could take advantage of this kind of artistic form permitted only to glorify God previously to convey human secular sentiment and the spiritual life of German in a miserable, gloomy century, and that is why this musical work had an edge of secularism. The greatness of it lies in the fact that it is weeping out its grief to all over the world and singing the praises of morality admired by every human being. In this sense, St. Matthew Passion is not only an epic work saturated with deep love for the people, the representative of German Protestant Church Music, but the pinnacle of existing sacred music.
巴赫生活在启蒙运动思潮开始活跃的时代里，已经能够理性地思索人与宗教、自然之间的关系，因此他能够自觉地运用这种以前“只准用来颂扬上帝”的艺术形式，来表达人类世俗的感情，表达德国人民在黯淡悲惨的世纪中的精神生活，所以这部作品就带有强烈的世俗色彩。这部作品的伟大之处，就在于它是在面向全人类倾诉，歌颂了全人类所推崇的道德。从这个意义上说，《马太受难曲》是一部饱含着对人类的热爱的史诗性作品，不仅是巴赫声乐作品的代表，德国新教教堂音乐的典范代表，也是“现存宗教音乐的顶峰”。
Bach had not got the respect he deserved when he was alive. For a long time after his death, only a few people kept Bach as an old organist in Leipzig in memory. Nevertheless, Beethoven never forgot this great composer, he had ever extended a helping hand to his daughter. The musical works left by Bach are of tremendous amount, but most of them had long been lost. It was not until the young German composer Mendelssohn gave the first performance of St. Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829 that this lay-dormant-for-a-century work see the full light of day and Bach's artistic merit was reappraised by the world. Since then there formed a kind of "Bach Craze", Bach Society was established and not a few people started searching, sorting and researching Bach's works. So far, a few thousands of Bach's works has been found but there are still a multitude of his manuscripts remain undiscovered.
巴赫在世时并没有得到应有的尊重，在他死后很长的时间里，只有少数人知道莱比锡曾经有过一个叫巴赫的老管风琴师。但是贝多芬没有忘记这位伟大的作曲家，曾经救助过他的女儿。巴赫留下的音乐作品浩如烟海，但大部分散佚无存。直到1829年，年轻的德国作曲家门德尔松在柏林首次上演了《马太受难曲》，这部沉睡了一个世纪的作品才重见天日，巴赫的艺术价值才得到世人的重新认识。这次演出之后，在德国形成了一股“巴赫热”，成立了巴赫学会，很多人动手搜寻、整理并研究巴赫的作品。至今，已经发现的巴赫的作品有上千部，但仍有大量手稿没有被找到。
According to the biographer of Mendelssohn, it is no more than a coincidence that Mendelssohn discovered St. Matthew Passion. Once when he escorted his wife to a butcher for sausage, the female owner tore off a few pieces of yellowish paper to wrap the sausage. Having returned home, Mendelssohn had the serendipitous discovery that they are manuscripts of music scores. Having read them carefully and felt unconventional, he hurried back to the butcher and purchased all the wrapping paper, they are no other than the full score of St. Matthew Passion.
根据门德尔松传记作者的记载，门德尔松能够发现巴赫的《马太受难曲》，纯属巧合。有一次，门德尔松陪妻子去肉铺买香肠，肉铺老板娘顺手扯过几张旧得发黄的纸把香肠包起来。回家以后，门德尔松意外地发现那竟是几张乐谱手稿，仔细读过谱子的内容，觉得不落俗套，就赶回肉店，把所有的包装纸都买了回来，这就是《马太受难曲》的总谱。
Actually, this story is thoroughly made up by the biographer. Having been born into a rich family, it is impossible that Mendelssohn himself went to the butcher for meat, let along he was 20 then and too young to get married. It is probably because the biographer had a mind to add some dramatic effect into his work that he wrote like this. There is another saying: the manuscript of St. Matthew Passion was given by Zelter to his pupil Mendelssohn, who had practiced this great work since 14. Still others say that Mendelssohn received a precious gift from his grandmother on Christmas day, 1823, it is no other than the manuscript of St. Matthew Passion. Anyway, Mendelssohn was immediately impressed after he obtained this musical work, he determined to introduce Bach's music to the world and wake people up to the composer's value.
实际上，这个故事完全是那位传记作者杜撰出来的。门德尔松出身豪门，根本不可能亲自去肉铺买东西，而且当时门德尔松才20岁，还没有结婚。那位传记作者很可能是为了增加传记的戏剧性效果，才故意这样写的。还有一种说法，《马太受难曲》的手稿是门德尔松的老师采尔特送给他的，门德尔松从14岁起便开始练习这部伟大的作品。也有人说，那是1823年的圣诞节，门德尔松的祖母送给他一份珍贵的礼物，它便是巴赫的《马太受难曲》的原稿抄本。不管来自哪个途径，门德尔松得到这部作品后，很快就被它深深地打动了，决心把巴赫的音乐作品介绍给世人，让人们重新来认识并理解巴赫。
It is a tough thing. This young man was not only distrusted of his foresight, but was doubted that he had the ability to master the heavy performing corps of 400 people or so. Mendelssohn held his ground, persuaded Zelter and busied himself with all sorts of things such as rehearse in person and prepared theater for the performance. On March 21st, 1829, the day of St. Matthew Passion's reappearance arrived! Anxious people queued up before the window and scrambled for tickets. The theater was packed but surprisingly quiet. St. Matthew Passion had finally been brought back with the up and down of the baton in Mendelssohn's hands.
这是一件非常艰难的事情。人们既怀疑这个年轻人的眼光，又担心他能否驾驭有400多人参加的庞大演出队伍。门德尔松力排众议，说服了他的老师采尔特，亲自排练，安排演出剧场，忙得不可开交。1829年3月21日，《马太受难曲》在莱比锡复排首演的日子到了！售票窗口前排起了长龙，焦急的人群将门票一抢而空。剧场内座无虚席，却出奇地安静。随着门德尔松手中指挥棒的起起落落，《马太受难曲》终于复活了。
The performance is a turning point in the renaissance of Bach in 19th century, and in this way the day March 21th, 1829 is called "Easter" of Bach's music.
这次演出是19世纪复兴巴赫的转折点，因此有人把1829年3月21日这一天称作巴赫音乐的“复活节”。
