it lay
unheard for a century. Haydn and Mozart and Beethoven hardly suspected
their predecessor's greatness. Then came Mendelssohn (to whom be the
honour and the glory), and gave to the world, to the world's great
surprise, the "Matthew" Passion, as one might say, fresh from the
composer's pen. The B minor mass followed, and gradually the whole of
the church and instrumental music; and now we are beginning dimly to
comprehend Bach's greatness.

II.

The "John" Passion and the "Matthew" Passion of Bach are as little
alike as two works dealing with the same subject, and intended for
performance under somewhat similar conditions, could possibly be; and
since the "Matthew" version appeals to the modern heart and
imagination as an ideal setting of the tale of the death of the Man of
Sorrows, one is apt to follow Spitta in his curious mistake of
regarding the differences between the two as altogether to the
disadvantage of the "John." Spitta, indeed, goes further than this. So
bent is he on proving the superiority of the "Matthew" that what he
sees as a masterstroke in that work is in the "John" a gross blunder;
and, on the whole, the pages on the "John" Passion are precisely the
most fatuous of the many fatuous pages he wrote when he plunged into
artistic criticism, leaving his own proper element of technical or
historical criticism. This is a pity, for Spitta really had a very
good case to spoil. The "Matthew" is without doubt a vaster,
profounder, more moving and lovelier piece of art than the "John."
Indeed, being the later work of a composer whose power grew steadily
from the first until the last time he put pen to paper, it could not
be otherwise. But the critic who, like Spitta, sees in it only a
successful attempt at what was attempted unsuccessfully in the
"John," seems to me to mistake the aim both of the "John" and the
"Matthew." The "John" is not in any sense unsuccessful, but a
complete, consistent and masterly achievement; and if it stands a
little lower than the "Matthew," if the "Matthew" is mightier, more
impressive, more overwhelming in its great tenderness, this is not
because the Bach who wrote in 1722-23 was a bungler or an incomplete
artist, but because the Bach who wrote in 1729 was inspired by a
loftier idea than had come to the Bach of 1723. It was only necessary
to compare the impression one received when the "John" Passion was
sung by the Bach Choir in 1896 with that received at the "Matthew"