Concerto Copenhagen / »Brockes Passion«

Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680–1747), son of a wealthy family of merchants, had a quintessential Hanseatic career. He was a councilman and senator in Hamburg; he travelled around Europe in his role as a diplomat; he held office as a county judge; and he was eventually appointed Lord of the Hamm and Horn localities. Brockes’s real passion, however, was literature and his first major work brought him international fame: »The Story of Jesus, Suffering and Dying for the Sins of the World« was the long-winded original title of his free adaptation of the Passion of Christ, published in 1712. The text has been set to music by several composers, including Keiser, Telemann and Mattheson. Georg Friedrich Handel’s version was published in 1716. Even though it is Handel’s only sacred work in German, the piece actually shows the composer following the Italian style.