Dear colleagues,



With one week until my performance of Bach's St. John I should be sitting with my head in the score,
but I have to respond to the thread I began a few weeks ago after reading a review of James
MacMillan's new St. John Passion. I've read all the Choraltalk responses again and find myself
disagreeing with some of what has been said. I have been thinking all too much about this!
Apologies - this is very long. And I've gone back and forth about whether I should even send it.



We all have biases, because we are who we are, so I'll start with disclosure, which you can easily
skip! I was brought up Jewish, I was Bar Mitzvahed, and we celebrated Hanukkah and Passover.
Somewhere in high school I "lost" religion and God, though my family still celebrates Hanukkah and
Passover. (Since I married a Presbyterian, in a Presbyterian church, btw, we also celebrate Easter
and Christmas, and since I like Guinness, I celebrate St. Patrick's Day.) From frosh year at
college until my second child was born I spent 25 years in a Protestant church every Sunday, first
singing, later conducting. The only god I believe in is Bach. Now you know my biases.



In prep for this St. John and possible concerns about anti-Judaism (anti the Jewish religion, as
opposed to anti-Semitism, anti the race), I've read much, including Marissen's book, which I highly
recommend (though finally I disagree with some of his conclusions). I am prepared to accept the
following as facts, in part in response to your emails:



1. John's original Greek work for the Jews more accurately translates as the Judeans.



2. John probably meant "Jewish authorities" when he said Jews.



3. Every New Testament in the world translates the words as "the Jews," from King James to RSV to
Good News for Modern Man.



4. The "Jews," whatever that meant in the first century, as a whole were not responsible for the
crucifixion. A small group of Jewish rulers were involved. It was the high priests, who, at best,
wanted "one man to die for the people," so that the Romans wouldn't destroy the Jews, or at worst,
as some of you have said, had a vested interest in maintaining their authority. (Maybe we should
call them the "Junta"!)



5. The Romans were responsible for much of this, including the destruction of the Jewish Temple in
70 AD.



6. The Second Vatican Council did its best to remove the guilt from the Jews.



7. We should not blame Jews as a whole for any of this, either then or now.



8. Jews have been blamed for centuries anyway. As one of you said, "The story has certainly been
manipulated in terrible ways against Jews."



I also believe the following:



1. There is still anti-Semitism in the world (and much other prejudice).



2. The Second Vatican Council and all that popes have said since have not eradicated the stigma
against the Jews as the killers of Christ.



3. Right or wrong, mistranslation or not, The Gospel of John has been used as an excuse for acts of
violence against Jews for centuries.



4. A Jew (all right, at least this non-practicing, non-believing Jew) cannot hear the Gospel of
John read and not feel like the Jews are being blamed, and not once, but over and over and over
again.



Bach and the St. John.



I am completely persuaded by Marissen that in the libretto choices Bach made - chorales, chorale
verses, and their placement; contemporary poems and their placement; word changes in Brockes'
libretto - Bach turns the guilt away from the Jews and puts it on all of us, all being sinners, all
with original sin, who are responsible for Jesus's death. Jesus had to die to save all of us,
because we are all sinful. This fits with 17th -18th century Lutheran beliefs, and the libretto
makes this clear. He probably wasn't trying to exculpate the Jews: Bach probably didn't know an
actual Jew. He was trying to do what he always did, preach a musical sermon in line with his
church's beliefs.



But John is still quoted verbatim, in Luther's translation, in Bach, and John still mentions "the
Jews" over 70 times, whereas in the other 3 Gospels "the Jews" are mentioned about 16 times,
combined. It's hard to escape the hammering at "the Jews" in John and in Bach, and even though Bach
ameliorates this, it's still there.



It's nice to say, ah, but the Romans really did this. But in John and Bach, Pilate is not the bad
guy. He says, "I find no fault in him at all, so you take him away and crucify him." He even
offers to release him, but the "Jews" say no, release Barabbas. I don't see any Pilate guilt in
John.



And Bach, being the master at expressing text, makes the crowd's music pretty violent, aggressive,
frenzied...pick a word.



I've gone from facts to interpretation. I find this hammering uncomfortable. If John were a story
or a poem, I would not read it on stage. Outside of a religious service, I think John would be
unpalatable, whereas Matthew, Mark and Luke would not be.



I would not say outright that John is anti-Judaic; I would say that the language of John may be
understood that way, and has been understood that way for centuries. Violence against Jews in the
middle ages often occurred immediately after services at which such a text was read. Pogroms were
more frequent during Lent and on Easter than at any other time. Accusations of "Christ-killer" and
other hideous things have been heard for centuries. And it was only recently that Passion Plays in
Germany stopped featuring hideous Jews with large fake noses strapped around their heads and horns,
for gosh sakes, on their heads! Recently! Since WWII. (In 1970 I was the first Jew one of my
college roomies had ever met, and he said he half-expected I'd have horns. 1970.)





So what do we do?



Clearly, steps taken like those of Tom Hall in Baltimore are tremendously helpful, as is this
discussion. We confront the issue with discussion and education. We look at Bach from a historical
perspective: times were different, etc. In Champagne-Urbana a few years ago Chet Alwes instigated a
series of radio programs dealing with the Gospels and Bach and specifically this question.



But more and more I don't think that's enough, thogh we are doing a few things, including having
Marissen come talk. I think we must change the text, heretical though it is to say that. I would
not change a word of the German, but I would soften it in the printed translation. (I don't know
what I'd do in a German-speaking country and thankfully I don't have to try to decide). We are
doing it in English; I can't imagine that Bach could conceive of a performance (or service) where
the audience didn't understand every word. So we have changed some words. Instead of "Jews, Jews,
Jews" over and over, we sometimes say "crowd," and often "the people" ("Die Juden" and "The People"
have the same number of syllables).



Bottom line: Otherwise the text might be offensive.



Let's make a comparison



For those who find changing the text or translation unacceptable: We make this kind of
accommodation to historically difficult texts all the time, or we choose not to do them. When was
the last time anyone programmed Stephen Foster's lovely song "In the Evening by the Moonlight,"
which continues, "you can hear the darkies singing"? Who would NOT realize that this might be
offensive? Who would perform a work that uses the word "niggers?" Some of us won't perform
spirituals in Negro dialect. Some of you probably cringed at my use of these words just now. Would
anyone perform a madrigal that talked about wife-beating, no matter how good the music is? Would
anyone say, oh, that was then, this is now?



Of course with Bach's St. John we aren't talking about a 2-minute madrigal, we are talking about one
of the greatest works ever written, and a two-hour work. We can't not perform it, nor should we not
perform it. We should make the same kind of accommodation we do with old racist texts. We don't
show the wonderful artistic film The Birth of a Nation any longer because it's horribly racist; when
did you last see it advertised at your local Regal Cinemas?



But what about Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice? Theaters often avoid this play because of
Shylock and Jewish stereotyping. I would submit that the play, as difficult as it is, does not
called Shylock a Christ-killer. Shylock is one (stereotypical) man, but the Gospel of John is about
one entire people (even though it really isn't) committing deicide.



MacMillan's St. John



This, to me, is almost a different issue than Bach. (I will accept that the review I quoted might
have been written by someone with an agenda.) Here we have a modern composer writing a concert
piece, not an 18th century composer who might never even have heard the word anti-Semitic writing
for a church service. We all seem to accept that Bach is a product of his time. Isn't MacMillan
also? Does he not know that some people might find his choice of text offensive? Hateful? Does he
not care? I think Ivry might be right: there is hatred here, in the choice of texts. We can't know
whether MacMillan intended this or not, but we can know what it says to us.



One of the choraltalk respondents discussed the Good Friday Reproaches that MacMillan interpolated
into the Passion and says, but the Jews didn't do these things, the Romans did, so MacMillan can't
be hateful toward the Jews. But look at these texts (no longer generally in use, btw):



For you I scourged Egypt and its first born, but you gave me up to be scourged.

I led you from Egypt, drowning Pharoah in the Red Sea, but you handed me over to the chief priests.

I opened the sea before you, but you opened my side with a spear.



In actuality the Roman soldiers opened Christ's side, but is there any doubt that this is an
indictment of the Jews? Why would a composer in 2008 set such a text? And about the setting,
Marissen says, after studying the work and hearing it: "As far as I can tell, whatever problems
there are in the verbal text are not palliated by the (often ferocious) musical setting."




Again, I ask, why set these hateful words?



My longtime colleague John Howell, who was also my early-music mentor at IU, said, "You are
certainly not suggesting censorship, I hope." I guess I feel the same way about MacMillan's work as
I do about the preachers who came to Albany recently to demonstrate against homosexuality, calling
it sinful and the devil's work: Let them come, and completely ignore them. Let MacMillan write
what he wants, but I'm probably not buying this CD nor a ticket to hear a performance, and I hope
the Boston Symphony will look more closely at the piece and decide that it's no more palatable than
The Birth of a Nation or Stephen Foster's original lyrics.



Don't we have enough hate in this world, without setting and performing these possibly hateful
texts?





David Griggs-Janower



The opinions expressed her do not represent the views of Albany Pro Musica, who probably wish I
would shut up.





Albany Pro Musica

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Univ. at Albany Albany NY 12222

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"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." Berthold Auerbach



"Although nature has gifted us all with voices, correct singing is the result of art and study."
Aristotle.



"Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can just listen to the B Minor Mass?" Michael Torke