Gethsemane and Golgatha, Op. 96

This Passion oratorio Gethsemane und Golgatha was composed in the astonishingly short period from 22 to 28 July 1838 on a text by the evangelist Wilhelm Schuber, a close friend of Friedrich Schneider’s. The premiere took place on Good Friday, 29 March 1839, in the Dessau Castle and City Church under the composer’s direction. Contemporary reviews rank the “curious” work “… with respect to the form, in line with the Passions of the great J. S. Bach, constructed with such pious meaning and high art [...]” and then get rather similarly carried away in effusive statements. The composer himself took utmost control of how his work was to be used and also most effectively involved the listening congregation in the performances by using for the chorales melodies that were sufficiently familiar from the worship service. At the same time, Schneider points out that the work was to be performed only in an ecclesiastical context. Purely as a Passion oratorio, Gethsemane und Golgatha fits in between the Johann Sebastian Bach Passions and Carl Loewe’s Das Sühnopfer des neuen Bundes.