Bach: St Matthew Passion (Matth?us-Passion)
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Edition: Music CDCD Release Date: 2003-04-08
Music Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Free Music Notes for Bach: St Matthew Passion (Matth?us-Passion)
Free Music Review: Surprisingly powerful
Hit: 4 Stars
I bought this recording more out of curiosity than any expectation of being moved by it, yet I find that the one-on-a-part approach works surprisingly well. If you have been stirred by excellent one-on-a part recordings of, say Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 (by Stubbs, McCreesh, and Alessandrini, in my order of preference), you may find that the smaller scale makes for greater intimacy and subtlety in the work's contrasting moods.
The most surprising thing for me is that the "choral" passages have more bite and dramatic impact here than in most recordings with larger forces. The urgency of the questions "was?" and "wohin?" in the opening chorus, the anxiety of the disciples' question, "Herr, bin ich's," the outrage of "Sind Donner, sind Blitzen in Wolken verschwunden," even the cruel fury of "Lass ihn Kreuzigen" make up for what they lack in sheer volume of sound by sensitive inflection of the text, gradation of dynamics, and rhythmic sharpness. The choice of a fairly large church organ also helps lend weight at key moments of the narrative (e.g., the rending of the temple veil).
Just as the Cavatina of Beethoven's Opus 130 quartet is no less passionate than, say, the funeral march of the Eroica merely because the scale is smaller, so McCreesh's reading of the St. Matthew Passion creates its own intimate intensity.
That I don't give this set a full five-star rating has more to do with the soloists than any dissatisfaction with the small scale. Mark Padmore is a good evangelist, but not as good as Gerd T?rk for Suzuki (a well-paced, sensitive performance that still satisfies after several hearings), or Pears for the wayward but magnificent Klemperer, or Kurt Equiluz or Ernst Haefliger, the leading Bach tenors of the 1960s, apart from the incomparable Fritz Wunderlich. (To my knowledge, Wunderlich never sang the evangelist in any recording of the St. Matthew, though he sang the tenor arias for the stolid Munchinger and the evangelist for a rather ponderous St. John led by Karl Forster, still worth having for its excellent soloists.) I haven't yet heard Ian Bostridge's evangelist for Herreweghe's acclaimed second recording, but I would expect him to be among the best.
Peter Harvey's Jesus lacks vocal authority and charisma when heard beside Fishcer-Dieskau for Klemperer or Mathias Goerne for Rilling (a frustrating recording in which superb soloists are shackled by Rilling's overarticulated, earthbound conducting and the manic melodrama of the evangelist, Michael Schade--by the time the story arrives at the capture of Jesus (still in Part I, mind you), Schade has been over the top so many times already that you just shrug and mutter, "What's he on about NOW?").
Deborah York's soprano solos are agile and pure of pitch but a bit wispy; at times she is all but covered by the accompaniment. Magdelena Kozena's opulent voice seems almost out of place here, though it is a great pleasure nonetheless. Stephan Loges's bass solos are OK, but they aren't a patch on Thomas Quasthoff (whose noble contributions are wasted on Rilling's pedestrian interpretation) or Walter Berry for Klemperer. Late in the oratorio, when Jesus has nothing left to sing but His last words, Peter Harvey takes over in "Komm S?sses Kreuz" and "Mache dich, mein Herze rein" and does them well. (The bass is the weak link among Suzuki's soloists--Chiyuki Urano's voice, like that of Loges, is accurate but small and not especially attractive.)
I'll be keeping this recording along with Suzuki and Klemperer, while dispatching Rilling to the used CD dealer and eventually acquiring the Herreweghe. This is one of the very greatest pieces in the western musical canon, so if you love it as I do, you'll want more than one interpretation of it.
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