About this edition
Bach's St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, stands as one of the supreme achievements of Western sacred music — a monumental setting of Christ's Passion according to the Gospel of Matthew, scored for double chorus, double orchestra, soloists, and ripieno boys' choir. Composed for Good Friday Vespers at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig and first performed in 1727, the work weaves together evangelist recitatives, dramatic turba choruses, contemplative arias, and Lutheran chorales into an architecture of unparalleled spiritual and musical depth. Its rediscovery and revival by Felix Mendelssohn in 1829 famously launched the modern Bach renaissance.
This score reproduces the celebrated edition prepared by Julius Rietz (1812–1877) for the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, published as Band 4 by Breitkopf und Härtel in Leipzig in 1854 (plate B.W. IV). The Bach-Gesellschaft, founded in 1850 in the centenary year of Bach's death, undertook the first complete critical edition of the composer's works — a landmark scholarly project that established the textual foundation for nearly all subsequent Bach performance and study. Rietz, conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and a meticulous editor, drew directly on Bach's autograph sources to produce a text that has remained a touchstone for performers and scholars for over 170 years.
About this edition:
- Full orchestral score, complete with vocal parts, recitatives, and continuo
- Generous 8.5 x 11 inch page size for clear, readable engraving
- Faithfully reproduced from the 1854 Bach-Gesellschaft public domain edition
- Edited by Julius Rietz; originally published by Breitkopf und Härtel, Leipzig
- Published by Purple 4R Publishing, specialists in carefully prepared reprints of historic orchestral scores
This volume makes a historically significant public domain edition once again available in an affordable, well-presented printed format — an ideal resource for conductors preparing performances, vocalists and instrumentalists studying their parts, and scholars exploring one of the cornerstones of the choral-orchestral repertoire. We hope it serves you well in your music-making and study.
