Brockes Passion

Handel’s only Passion has never achieved the popularity of his other choral works but is a treasure trove of his finest music. Composed around 1716 for performance in Germany, the Brockes Passion was based on a popular libretto by Barthold Brockes, who abandoned the strict Biblical narrative drawn from a single gospel (used in Bach’s Passions) and replaced it with a poetic dramatisation of the Passion story incorporating elements from all four. Handel drew on his experience as an opera composer to humanise the characters and pace the drama. Some of his shortest arias are the most dramatically effective, including Jesus’ urgent “Ist’s möglich, ist’s möglich”, attempting to assuage his father’s wrath, and “Hier erstarrt mein Herz und Blut”, which follows the Crucifixion not with the expected lament but with shocked gasps of horror. As was Handel’s way, music from nearly half the arias, duets and choruses was borrowed from earlier pieces or subsequently recycled. Bach thought highly enough of the work to perform it twice, in 1746 and 1748.