Christ is brought before Pontius Pilate and there begins Pilate’s long argument with the Jews about the question of his guilt. In this exchange the chorus portrays the Roman soldiers, and the mob of people who are turned against Christ. (Pontius Pilate (d39AD) was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea from AD26-36 serving under the Emperor Tiberius. As well as being mentioned in all four gospels, he is also named as Procurator of Judaea in the works of the Roman historian, Tacitus (c55-120). In all of the gospels Pilate is reluctant to acquiesce to the wishes of the crowd, and in Matthew’s gospel he even washes his hands in front of it, symbolically disowning the decision to crucify Christ.) The music for choruses 23 and 25, on both occasions broadly the same, is harmonically restless, and characterised by a chromatically ascending, then descending phrase, heard first in the basses, but given, on numerous occasions, to the other parts in turn, which continuously overlap one another, often with contrary motion moving inwards between the highest and lowest parts. The music for each of Pilate’s phrases is also very similar, and this repetition between Pilate and chorus serves only to emphasise the insistence of both sides in this argument. When Pilate addresses Christ for the first time, Christ replies with two short phrases, both of which rise in pitch towards the end. Also present in no.26 on the word sterben (a reference to dying) is the four note chromatic “cross” leitmotiv which Bach was to use so liberally in the St Matthew Passion three years later. It appears here in the cello continuo part. In his customary way, Bach also draws attention to the word by using a small chromatic melisma. The word kämpfen (fight) is also painted with a jagged and quick moving melisma, set to a fanfare-like phrase suggesting a call to battle.