florida state university college of music performance practice

was the practice of many conductors to implement a crescendo in the sections where the
harmonic rhythm increases thereby making these areas noticeably louder than the rest of
the movement. These sections are in measures 30-33, 43-47, and 61 to the end. Two
conductors, Corboz (1994) and Christophers (1989) start an accelerando from measure 61
to the end.
The durations of this movement show an interesting trend. The beginning and
middle of the twenty-five years studied show more variety in the duration of this
movement than the latter part of the study from 2000 to present. The top three fastest
recordings are American conductor Milnes at 1:12 followed by English conductor
Christophers (1989) at 1:13 and lastly German conductor Schreier (1988) at 1:16. The
slowest recordings of this movement are from German conductor Weyand (1990) at 1:37,
second is Belgium conductor Kuijken (1987) at 1:31 and last, German conductor Schulz
(1998) at 1:31.
28 Er nahm alles wohl in acht (Chorale)
This chorale melody which appeared beforehand as “Petrus, der nicht denkt
Züruck” (no. 14) textually advises man to pattern himself after Christ, who even in the
last hour, took care of all things and so as we should have our lives arranged in such
order. 432 This chorale seemed to garner many different interpretive ideas from the
conductors studied. However, dynamically a preponderance of conductors seemed to
have similar dynamic predilections regarding this chorale. Most conductors began in a
softer dynamic volume continuing for four lines where at “O Mensch” the volume is
suddenly increased. This full volume usually lasted for three lines until the last line, “Und
dich nicht betrübe” (and do not be sorrowful) where once again conductors return to a
softer reflective dynamic. 433
In relation to phrasing most conductors observed the bulk of fermatas written in
this chorale. The conductors who did observe Luftpause did so on words or phrases such
as “O Mensch.” Those conductors, Gardiner (1986), Cleobury (1996), Beringer (1997)
and Max (2006), who were concerned in creating longer sustained lines in the interest of
poetic understanding were inclined to disregard the fermata in bar two. To heighten
432 Roehrig, “The St. John Passion by J.S. Bach in the light of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe edition 1973,” 143.
433 Translations are from Dürr, Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion, 162-163.
125