The Weimarer Passion, BWV deest (BC D 1), is a hypothetical Passion oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, thought to have possibly been performed on Good Friday 26 March 1717 at Gotha on the basis of a payment of 12 Thaler on 12 April 1717 to "Concert Meister Bachen". It is one of several such lost Passions. Both the text (by an unknown librettist) and music are lost, but individual movements from this work could have been reused in latter works such as the Johannes-Passion. At one time, it was thought that the work set chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew to music, with interspersed chorales and arias, but current consensus is that it is possible that the text reflected a synopsis of two or more Gospel texts, as well as the interspersed chorales and arias.
Background
Of the five Passion settings Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Sebastian's former pupil Johann Friedrich Agricola mention in Bach's obituary only two have survived with any degree of certainty: the St John Passion and the St Matthew Passion. A third is documented in the form of a libretto dating from 1731 (published 1732) and a newly discovered libretto dating from 1744 (found in the National Library in St. Petersburg [Catalogue No. 17,139.1.423]). A fourth Passion is evident in the form of a manuscript copy by Bach and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel dating from c. 1730 (with an addition recently discovered in Bach's hand dating from c. 1745/1746) of an anonymous St Luke Passion that originally was attributed to Bach (BWV 246 [BC D 6]), but has now been attributed to a yet unknown master who was active in Thuringia in the early 18th century (possibly ending in ca. 1717). The attribution to Johann Melchior Molter has been rejected based on the fact that some of the material in the manuscript was done in Carl Philipp Emanuel's hand, who left Leipzig in 1734 for Frankfurt an der Oder). Much speculation has been made over the identity of the fifth Passion setting. Theories have ranged from a one-choir setting of the St Matthew Passion ("Eine Paßion nach dem Matthäus, incomplet" was listed in the "Verzeichniß des musikalischen Nachlasses des verstorbenen Capellmeisters Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach" (1714–1788) published by Gortlieb Friedrich Schniebes in Hamburg in 1790). Others have speculated that the Weimarer Passion was the fifth Passion setting discussed in the obituary. Others have speculated that this Passion setting not really an Oratorio Passion at all, but rather a Passion Oratorio setting of a text by Christian Friedrich Henrici entitled "Erbauliche Gedanken auf den Gruenen Donnerstag und Charfreitag ueber den Leidenden Jesum" (a part of his 1725 text cycle Sammlung erbaulicher Gedancken über und auf die gewöhnlichen Sonn- und Festtage).
Bach in 1717
The year 1717 proved to be a pivotal one in the life and career of Bach, then Court Organist and Concertmaster to the main Court of William Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. That year, he gained some notoriety outside of the region where he lived and worked, in the modern state of Thuringia. Johann Mattheson, a diplomat, musician, music theoretician, and Kantor (director of church musicI at the old St. Mary's Cathedral in Hamburg, published his treatise about music and musicians, Das Beschützte Orchestre, oder desselben Zweyte Eröffnung: Worinn Nicht nur einem würcklichen galant-homme ... sondern auch manchem Musico selbst die alleraufrichtigste und deutlichste Vorstellung musicalischer Wissenschaften .... In Part I, Chapter V, p. 222 of this treatise, Mattheson states "Ich habe von dem berühmten Organisten zu Weimar/hrn. Joh. Sebastian Bach/Sachen gesehen..." ("I have of the organist to Weimar/Mr. Joh. Sebastian Bach/seen things ..."). In this work, he lists famous contemporary and former organists. Thus, for the first time, the name of Johann Sebastian Bach appeared in print. In the autumn of that year, Bach was invited to a Keyboard instrument contest in the capital city of the Electorate of Saxony, Dresden, between himself and the French Royal Court Organist and Keyboardist Louis Marchand, who was then towards the end of a long concert tour of the Holy Roman Empire. When Bach arrived, however, he learned that his rival had left the night before, thus aborting the contest and by default acknowledging his inferiority to Bach's skills.