Did Bach Write A St. Luke's Passion?

[haydnguy]

I never heard of it and then I saw someone buying a CD of it. I looked it up in a book and it wasn't mentioned, just that he wrote at LEAST 3 passions. What's the scoop?

[Baroque Mongoose]

I've heard he did, but I don't know much about it. Give me a little while and I'll see what I can find - I think there's something in some of the liner notes to one of the other Bach Passions I have, but I can't remember which one.

[micrologus]

It seems Bach wrote 4 passions.

There is a manuscript of the St Luke's Passion from abour 1730 that's partly in Bach's hand, but it's not certain that the music is his own. Presumably Bach performed it, or intended to perform it, in Leipzig. It could have been mistaken for a work of Bach.
Of course, given his delight in exhaustive cycles, Bach should have composed a St Luke Passion. Apparently J. S. Bach took the anonymous St Luke Passion and arranged it for four voices, chorus, orchestra, and continuo to meet an urgent deadline for Good Friday in 1730.

[haydnguy]

I forgot to say in my original post that the book said that there was a St. Mark's passion but it was lost. That would have been the third. The book doesn't mention a St. Luke's passion but it left the door open for one. It just sort of surprised me to see a recording for it.

[micrologus]

The music of the St Mark Passion was lost but the libretto survived. This passion has been to some degree reconstructed, but until they'll find the music by Bach's hand, we'll never know how it sounds

[Roehre]

JSBach composed at least five passions, not counting revisions of these works (at least 4 versions of the St.John alone e.g.) nor amendments of other composers' ones (Handel's Brockes e.g., performed by Bach in 1747 an '48).

These Passions are:
"Weimar"-Passion (1717), BWV deëst- nothing has survived as far as we know (pointing at Bach's recycling of music....)

St.John (1st version 1724) BWV 245 - at least 4 versions, last 1749

St.Mark (1726) BWV 247 -only text has survived, but as this was most likely a parody-passion, it can be quite reliably reconstructed.

St.Matthew (1st version 1727 -and not 1729!) BWV 244 - many amendments, youngest version not earlier than 1742

St.Luke (1730) BWV 246 - text and some chorales have survived. Again, a parody-passion, and reconstruction on that basis is quite reliably possible.

[James C. Fretz]

There is a marvelous recording of this. Ton Koopman, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir and soloists:

Sibylla Rubens, Sop.
Bernhard Ladauer, Alt.
Christoph Prégardien, Ten. (Evangelist)
Peter Kooy, Bass (Christus)
Klaus Mertens, Bass

Maestro Koopman completed the 'torso' by drawing upon music Bach composed for his cantatas, as well as composing some of the missing chorales himself.

The recording is beautifully recorded, but in the end one is left in a quandary.

[Roehre]

Welcome to these boards, James.

Indeed, this is one of the potential reconstructions.
As I stated before, the text is completely known. It is a matter of finding the fitting bits and pieces among Bach's music (preferably, but not necessarily, the vocal music), and more than one solution therefore is possible.
At the moment software has been developed to find melodies for set texts (very succesful in matching medieval texts with medieval melodies of which the text has gone lost), which means that in the future an in that respect more "reliable" reconstruction of the lost Bach Passions is possible (if necessary)

[mich]

This rang a bell with me I searched my old tape collection and found that I have “St Lukes Passion” Arranged by Orff/Jirasek and performed by Munich Oratorio Choir and S.O. Cond Bostock, this arrangement is what I would call individual from memory but I have not listened to it for years.