In the autumn of 1721, when Georg Philipp Telemann became cantor at the Hamburg Johanneum and music director of the city’s five  principal churches, he faced the challenge of  composing and performing a new Passion setting every year.<br>
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The ninety-minute St. John Passion of 1745 was written in a winningly clear and transparent style, with two large choral numbers, six chorales (probably joined by the congregation) and several turbae that pose interesting yet manageable demands on the chorus. The plain and unassuming recitatives and the eleven sharply defined yet  contemplative arias  give soloists broad leeway for artistic interpretation. This volume follows the  Urtext of vol. 29 of the Telemann Edition, thereby offering a reliable text at the pinnacle of  modern scholarship.<br>