Luther was so musical that while the German Reformation was far from conservative of ancient liturgy, it retained almost every thing which makes for musical coherence in a Church service; unlike the English Church, which with all its insistence on historic continuity, so rearranged the liturgy that no possible music for an English Church service can ever form a coherent whole. The four Passions and the Historia der Auferstehung Christi of H. SchUtz (who was born in 1585, exactly a century before Bach) are as truly the descendants of Victoria's Passions as they are the ancestors of Bach's. They are Protestant in their use of the vulgar tongue, and narrative and dialogue are set to free com position instead of Gregorian chant, although written in Greg orian notation. The Marcus Passion is in a weaker and more modern style and stereotyped in its recitative. It may be spurious. But in the other Passions, and most of all in the Auferstehung, the recitative is a unique and wonderful language. It may have been accompanied by the organ, though the Passions contain no hint of accompaniment at all. In the Auferstehung the Evangelist is accompanied by four viole era gamba in preference to the organ. The players are requested to "execute appropriate runs or pas sages" during the sustained chords. A final non-scriptural short chorus on a chorale-tune is Schutz's only foreshadowing of the contemplative and hymnal element of later Passion oratorios.
The Auferstehung, the richest and most advanced of all SchUtz's works, has one strange convention, in that single persons, other than the Evangelist, are frequently represented by more than one voice. If this were confined to the part of the Saviour, it would have shown a reverent avoidance of impersonation, as in Roman Catholic polyphonic settings of the Seven Words. But SchUtz writes thus only in Die Auferstehung and there on no particular plan. While the three holy women and the two angels in the scene at the tomb are represented naturally by three and two imitative voices, Mary Magdalene is elsewhere always repre sented by two sopranos.
Shortly before Bach, Passion oratorios were represented by sev eral remarkable works of art, most notably by R. Keiser (1673 1739). Chorale-tunes, mostly in plain harmony, were freely in terspersed in order that the congregation might take part in what was, after all, a church service for Holy Week. The meditations of Christendom on each incident of the story were expressed in accompanied recitatives (arioso) leading to arias or choruses, and the scriptural narrative was sung to dramatic recitative and ejaculatory chorus on the ancient Roman plan. On slightly differ ent lines was Graun's beautiful Tod Jesu, which was famous when the contemporary works of Bach were ignored.
The difference between Bach's Passions and all others is simply the measure of his greatness. Where his chorus represents the whole body of Christendom it has as peculiar an epic power as it is dramatic where it represents tersely the responsa turbae of the narrative.
In the Matthew Passion the part of Christ has a special accom paniment of sustained strings, generally at a high pitch, though deepening at the most solemn moments. And at the words "Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani" this musical halo has vanished. In power of declamation Bach was anticipated by Keiser; but no one approached him in sustained inspiration and architectonic great ness. The forms of Passion music may be found in many of Bach's Church cantatas; a favourite type being the Dialogue; as, for instance, a dispute between a fearing and a trusting soul with, per haps, the voice of the Saviour heard from a distance ; or a dialogue between Christ and the Church, on the lines of the Song of Solo mon. The Christmas Oratorio, a set of six Church cantatas for performance on separate days, treats the Bible story in the same way as the Passions, with a larger proportion of non-dramatic numbers. Many of the single Church cantatas are called oratorios, a term which by Bach's time seems definitely to have implied dialogue, possibly on the strength of a false etymology. Thus Schutz inscribes a monodic sacred piece "in stilo Oratorio," mean ing "in the style of recitative." The further history of oratorio radiates from the heterogeneous works of Handel.
There are various types and several mixtures of style in Han delian oratorio. The German forms of Passion music evidently interested Handel, and it was after he came to England, and be fore his first English oratorio, that he set to music the famous poetic version of the Passion by Brockes, which had been adopted by all the German composers of the time, and which, with very necessary improvements of taste, was largely drawn upon by Bach for the text of his Johannes-Passion. Handel's Brockes Passion does not appear ever to have been performed, though Bach found access to it and made a careful copy; so Handel must have com posed it for his own edification. He soon discovered that many kinds of oratorio were possible. The emancipation from the stage admitted of subjects ranging from semi-dramatic histories, like those of Saul, Esther and Belshazzar, to cosmic schemes expressed entirely in the words of the Bible, such as Israel in Egypt and The Messiah. Between these types there is every gradation of form and subject ; besides an abrupt contrast of literary merit between the mutilated Milton of Samson and the amazing ab surdities of Susannah.