The St. Mark Passion of J. S. Bach has already undergone many reconstruction attempts. Only the text according to Picander has survived and thus allows conclusions to be drawn about the original form of the Passion. Due to various parody relations, however, almost all arias and choruses can be reconstructed with great certainty. The music of the recitatives and turbae, on the other hand, is probably lost forever. In contrast to other reconstructions, Austin H. Gomme does not use the dubious technique of a new composition "in the style of Bach", but supplements the reconstructible material with elements from Reinhard Keiser's St. Mark Passion. Keiser, who as a contemporary of Bach himself set the text of the Passion according to Mark, was highly regarded by Bach. There is evidence that he performed Keiser's St. Mark Passion on several occasions.

The reconstruction by Austin H. Gomme, undertaken for the first time against the background of the New Bach Edition, now makes it possible to perform the lost work as a whole and thus to place the unique arias and choruses in a musically coherent context of the Passion story.