Grosse Passionsmusik nach dem Evangelium Matthaei ... Partitur. Seiner Koniglichen Hoheit dem Kronprinzen von Preussen in tiefster Ehrfurcht vom Verleger zugeeignet. Preis der Parttitur: Rth. 18.- Preis des Klavierauszuges: Rth. [7 1/2]. BWV 244. [Full score]

Berlin: Schlesinger [PN 1570], 1830. Folio. Contemporary leather-backed marbled boards, portion of old paper title label to spine.

1f. (recto title, verso blank), [iv] (list of subscribers), viii (letterpress text of the Mass in German), 5-324 pp. engraved music.

Small 19th century monogrammatic blindstamps of the publisher with initials "A.S." to blank lower corners of title.

Binding somewhat worn, rubbed, and bumped; small tear to head of spine; upper hinge split. Moderate foxing to title, with price of piano-vocal score added in manuscript and with early numbering and other annotations in manuscript, one crossed out; preliminary leaves slightly foxed; music slightly browned and with some foxing, more pronounced to final 10 leaves; some signatures loose or split; tear to title and following leaf with old paper repairs; light purple ink spotting to pp. 29/30, 61/62, 75-78, and 129.

Occasional light performance markings in pencil. First Edition. Rare. Schneider 111. Fuld, p. 171. Hoboken I, 26. Hirsch IV, 677. Riemenschneider 1988. RISM BB436a.

With text by the poet "Picander" (Christian Friedrich Henrici 1700-1764).

146 copies printed for subscribers, the list of which includes a considerable number of prominent musicians, most notably Mendelssohn, whose famous performance of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin on 11 March 1829 heralded a reawakening of interest in Bach's music. Other names found in the subscribers list include A.B. Marx (editor of the work), Meyerbeer, Louis Spohr, and Zelter.

With early handstamp of the "Koniglich Seminarium zu Wissenfels" to title. The subscriber's list includes "Herr E. Hentschel," presumably Ernst Julius Hentschel (1804-1875), a music pedagogue who taught at the Seminar in Weissenfels; it would seem most likely that the present copy was that subscribed to by Hentschel.

Zelter, director of the Singakademie in Berlin and a leading member of the Bach revival, "owned a large collection of Bach's works formerly the property of Kirnberger and Agricola. His young pupil Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was given an opportunity to study these scores. It was due to Mendelssohn's unwavering enthusiasm that in 1829, a century after the Leipzig performance, the St. Matthew Passion was produced under his leadership in Berlin. This was a dazzling revelation to the musical world since - apart from infrequent performances of the motets - hardly any of Bach's great vocal works had been heard before. In the following years, as a direct result of the performance, the two Passions and, in 1845, the Mass in B minor were published." Geiringer: Bach, p. 351.

"The St. Matthew Passion is by any standard a remarkable composition - one of the most complex of all Bach's vocal works and for many the most profound. Mendelssohn considered it to be 'the greatest of Christian works', and many other superlatives have continued to be accorded this emotionally powerful music, which almost every choral group aspires to perform." Boyd, ed.: J.S. Bach, p. 430.