Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism, and Bach's St. John Passion

Bach''s St. John Passion is surely one of the monuments of Western music, yet performances of it are inevitably controversial. In large part, this is because of the combination of the powerful and highly emotional music and a text that includes passages from a gospel marked by vehement anti-Judaic sentiments. What did this masterpiece mean in Bach''s day and what does it mean today? Although bibl...