Weimarer Passion

The Weimarer Passion, BWV deest (BC D 1), is a hypothetical Passion oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, thought to have possibly been performed on Good Friday 26 March 1717 at Gotha on the basis of a payment of 12 Thaler on 12 April 1717 to "Concert Meister Bachen". It is one of several such lost Passions. Both the text (by an unknown librettist) and music are lost, but individual movements from this work could have been reused in latter works such as the Johannes-Passion. At one time, it was thought that the work set chapters and of the Gospel of Matthew to music, with interspersed chorales and arias, but current consensus is that it is possible that the text reflected a synopsis of two or more Gospel texts, as well as the interspersed chorales and arias.

Of the five Passion settings Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Sebastian's former pupil Johann Friedrich Agricola mention in Bach's obituary only two have survived with any degree of certainty: the St John Passion and the St Matthew Passion. A third is documented in the form of a libretto dating from 1731 (published 1732) and a newly discovered libretto dating from 1744 (found in the National Library in St. Petersburg [Catalogue No. 17,139.1.423]). A fourth Passion is evident in the form of a manuscript copy by Bach and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel dating from c. 1730 (with an addition recently discovered in Bach's hand dating from c. 1745/1746) of an anonymous St Luke Passion that originally was attributed to Bach (BWV 246 [BC D 6]), but has now been attributed to a yet unknown master who was active in Thuringia in the early 18th century (possibly ending in ca. 1717). The attribution to Johann Melchior Molter has been rejected based on the fact that some of the material in the manuscript was done in Carl Philipp Emanuel's hand, who left Leipzig in 1734 for Frankfurt an der Oder). Much speculation has been made over the identity of the fifth Passion setting. Theories have ranged from a one-choir setting of the St Matthew Passion ("Eine Paßion nach dem Matthäus, incomplet" was listed in the "Verzeichniß des musikalischen Nachlasses des verstorbenen Capellmeisters Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach" (1714–1788) published by Gortlieb Friedrich Schniebes in Hamburg in 1790). Others have speculated that the Weimarer Passion was the fifth Passion setting discussed in the obituary. Others have speculated that this Passion setting not really an Oratorio Passion at all, but rather a Passion Oratorio setting of a text by Christian Friedrich Henrici entitled "Erbauliche Gedanken auf den Gruenen Donnerstag und Charfreitag ueber den Leidenden Jesum" (a part of his 1725 text cycle Sammlung erbaulicher Gedancken über und auf die gewöhnlichen Sonn- und Festtage).

...
Wikipedia