Is Bach’s “St. John Passion” anti-Semitic?
This is one of the main questions we will discuss, if not answer definitively, at our forum. The answer is complex, influenced by the work’s background and reception history, and somewhat dependent upon the perspective of the person who is asking the question. The way I see it, there are at least four layers to this issue: (1) Are Bach’s libretto and music inherently anti-Semitic? (2) Is the Gospel of John an anti-Semitic text? (3) Have performers and listeners in later years seen the St John Passion as anti-Semitic? (4) What are we to make of all this today? Regarding (1), musicologist Richard Taruskin would say yes, Bach’s work is inherently anti-Semitic, whereas Michael Marissen (author of the book Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism and Bach’s St. John Passion) argues that Bach softens the anti-Jewish tone of the sources he used for his libretto, including the Gospel text itself. Which leads us to (2): can we shift blame away from Bach, as it were, by holding the Gospel of John to be inheren
