Johann Sebastian Bach composed his St. John Passion for a performance on 7 April 1724; he produced further, slightly divergent versions of the work in the years 1725, 1732 and 1749.

The present piano-vocal score by Günter Raphael was published together with the source-critical new edition of the complete performance material. The editor Gerd Sievers based himself on the original score (partly autographic, partly from a copyist's hand and corrected by Bach). The division into altogether 68 vocal numbers differs from the numbering of the New Bach Edition. The 40 numbers listed there are supplemented in the register of contents for the sake of orientation.