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. Back at Weimar, his employment situation became more complicated. In 1716, his co-employer Ernest Augustus I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach had married Princess Eleonore Wilhelmine of Anhalt-Köthen (an event that Bach probably participated in and for which he provided music). The new duchess's brother (Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen) may also have attended the event. If that is the case, he would have met Bach then. At any rate, on 5 August 1717, Leopold officially ordered Bach to become his Court Kapellmeister. Around the same time (1717), the relations between the co-rulers in Weimar became even