The UK premiere of “a new Bach masterpiece”, produced by Bill Barclay’s Concert Theatre Works and brought to life by the Dunedin Consort with John Butt and actor Joseph Marcell.

J.S. Bach wrote Passion settings for the gospels of Mark as well as for Matthew and John – two of the greatest artistic works of all time. Shortly after Bach’s death in 1750, his Markus-Passion was hand-delivered by his son C.P.E. to his Leipzig publisher, Johann Breitkopf.

Not until after 1850, when the centennial complete works of Bach’s music began, was its loss spotted. Seeing the Markus-Passion listed in an inventory of the composer’s music but not finding the score, Wilhelm Rust – one of Bach’s successors at the Thomas Kirche in Leipzig and an editor of the new complete works – began to search.

Though discovery of the original Passion still continues to elude us, its unique instrumentation – including two gambas and two colascioni (theorbo-family lutes) – led Rust to suspect that the music for this Passion might be related to, or perhaps recycled from, an earlier work.

Indeed its predecessor is the Trauer-Ode, the funeral tombeau Bach composed in 1727 for his former employer in Köthen, Prince Leopold. The Trauer-Ode’s text is, however, brief by comparison to the Passion and a search for arias matching the scansion of the Markus-Passion text began…. and it has continued for a century and half.

This new edition by Malcolm Bruno offers three beautiful and virtually unknown arias to fill the empty places left by the shorter music of the Trauer-Ode, along with a unique role for an actor as Evangelist. This “pocket passion” of just four singers, actor, and single strings compliments Bach’s two enormous Passions with the intimacy of chamber music.

Concert Theatre Works has created its first-ever staged version, with memorised singers dramatically supporting acclaimed actor, Joseph Marcell (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Shakespeare’s Globe, Royal Shakespeare Company and The National Theatre). Writer/Director Bill Barclay has fashioned a theatrical presentation that tours the four singers and Marcell to period orchestras who recreate Bach’s long-lost vision in few rehearsals and in intimate spaces. Following pandemic delays, Marcell and Barclay will give the world premiere production in New York City on April 13th, 2025 at Music Before 1800 for its 50th anniversary. The production will be filmed and tour internationally in 2025-26.

Joseph Marcell actor
Dunedin Consort
Malcolm Bruno editor
Bill Barclay writer, director
John Butt conductor