Collegium Vocale Gent - Bach: Matthaus-Passion (St Matthew Passion) BWV 244 /Bostridge * Selig * Rubens * Scholl * Gura * Henschel * Collegium Vocale * Herreweghe (+CD-Rom)
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Free Music Notes for Bach: Matthaus-Passion (St Matthew Passion) BWV 244 /Bostridge * Selig * Rubens * Scholl * Gura * Henschel * Collegium Vocale * Herreweghe (+CD-Rom)
Free Music Review: My favorite too!
Hit: 5 Stars
I own six different St. Matthew Passion recordings, and this is my favorite. Herrweghe gets it right. I am not a stickler for HIP, but prefer it. In my opinion this is the most balanced high quality HIP treatment of the St. Matthew available. Get it! Free Music Review: Excellent work - but problems with sound level
Hit: 4 Stars
I have no complaints about the performance, with the exception of two points: (1) the bass can at times sound too sharp and loud; (2) there is a bit of showing off, desire to impress the listener. Otherwise the work is awesome, but I am irritated by the recording quality. I thought that I would get used to it, but as I continue to listen to it, it irritates me more and more. The sound level is unequal. It is either too low, or annoyingly too high. I simply cannot just turn on the CD and listen through without adjusting volume levels all the time. Music becomes too quiet, then it bursts into sudden loudness, sharp, unpleasant sounds, which is extremely vexing. This is the main reason for my not listening to this recording more often. To add insult to injury, the bonus CD does not work on my computer, but freezes and muddles up. If I knew about this, I wouldn't have bought these CDs. Fortunately, I have also Herreweghe I, which I prefer to this one. But my all time favourite is - HARNONCOURT.
Free Music Review: Best HIP I've heard for St. Matt to date, but...
Hit: 4 Stars
Musically, I agree with most reviewers. This is definitely the St. Matthew I enjoy the most. I've listened to many, over many years, having been introduced to St. Matthew Passion as a part of a performing boychoir 30 years ago. I doubt I will pick out another version from my CD collection ever again. So why the less-than-perfect review? Well, I'd expect that Harmonia Mundi, producing a product like this, could put it in a decent jewelcase, where the CD's didn't fall out at the slightest provocation, and have no other protection. (Yes, some of my old CD's fall out of their holders, but they are still encased in the jewelcase and usually have one of those silly foam inserts that seemed so incomprehensible way back when.) I hope my CD purchases are investments and not something I will have to replace in one or two years. (So far I've only had to replace 1 CD in 20 years, due to player malfunction which damaged it.)Second, and I don't consider this very important to the "use" of this recording - the interactive CDROM does not seem to work on "relatively" slow Macs, which are within the specs given for its use. (I was trying on "only a slow" 210 MHz PPC604e with 1MB L2 cache, and the sound just kept dropping out, even with nothing else running and no VM.) I had a similar report from a friend on a better equipped Mac. It worked fine on my office PC, and frankly I think it was a really heavy experience to go through the recording with this CDROM, with the text and analysis in front of me. I've loaned the CDROM out a few times already, and expect to do so more in the future.
In summary - this is my favorite interpretation of St. Matthew. No, the miking isn't what you would hear in a concert hall. But it is what you would like to hear in your living room, to hear the dramatic solo parts. It is definitely my favorite to listen to, over Gardiner (my previous favorite), Schreier, and others. I recommend this CD for listening.
I just hope Harmonia Mundi does something about the packaging. And maybe the CDROM requirements.
Free Music Review: Brilliant
Hit: 5 Stars
Herreweghe's Passio is performed on historical instruments, with baroque structuration of both orchestras and choirs. Typically to pre-HIP, orchestras were large (same used in a Rachmaninoff concerto) and choirs were even larger, in order to surpass the noise of such an extended number of instruments used. Tempos were as well utterly disrespectfull to Baroque usance, which preffered equilibrum instead of "feeling". Perfect example of such performance, which I ALWAYS avoid, is Klemperer's. Another long forgotten issue was the Passio weren't designed to be played in concert halls, where sounds of typically small orchestra tend to fade in. The modern trend which Herreweghe follows closely is to integrate HIP as much as possible, yet always with great precaution, since excesses tend to transform beautiful arias into barren pieces of didactic "museum music". Although I admire his Cantatas, Harnoncourt's Passio makes, on my oppinion, such a dangerous excess. It almost deprives the work of its original beauty in order to correspond the presumed original style. Of all, the best recording ever done is perhaps Gardiner's. He's a genious in restoring not only THE authentic sound, but also the authentic beauty and sheer dramaticism. Herreweghe comes closely in the second place. Both performances are themselves works of art and few time should be spared classifying which one is better. Puting Herreweghe slightly below Gardiner came from a personal preference over more historically accurate staccato tempi.
Free Music Review: St. Matthew Passion Reborn
Hit: 5 Stars
In 1989 Gardiner interpreted Bach's St. Matthew Passion for the label, DG Archiv. Despite the-Gardiner-recording's evident bland, frigid, and impersonal aura (which to some people is called "period style performance"), this recording was called a standard- the rendition of the Matthauspassion to which all others would be compared.
Harnoncourt's release, while a pioneering effort nonetheless, was too rough around the edges, unrefined, and sounded as though layers of academic dust were caked onto it.
Now Gardiner's recording can join Harnoncourt's in the period instrument platitude dominated by stiffness, uneffected orchestras and soloists, and overbearing use of staccato. Herreweghe transcended this Historically-Informed stereotype in the 1980s when he released his rendition of Bach's St. Matthew Passion for Harmonia Mundi the first time, creating a more suave shape to the work as a whole. No longer was it "rough around the edges." His second release of the Passion, recorded here, has even more. It is delicate, clean, somber, yet dramatic, just as the St. Matthew Passion should be. This, I feel, will be the St. Matthew Passion to which all others will be judged. I have yet to hear anything better.
The key to Herreweghe's success in his release is approach of legato instead of staccato, and by taking a look at the enlightening CD-Rom which is part of this grand St. Matthew Passion package, you'll see Mr. Herreweghe has the knowledge to proove his beautiful approach.
(Harmonia Mundi's attractive package includes: the complete libretto, the complete St. Matthew Passion on three discs, and "The Birth of the St. Matthew Passion: An Interactive Journey" CD-Rom with numerous biographies, histories, scholarly notes, the complete Passion with pop-up libretto, and synopsises of each number of the Passion.)
Herreweghe also posesses what Gardiner doesn't, an astute judgement of tempo.
In contrast to Gardiner's impersonality in his St. Matthew Passion, Herreweghe's sense of the work's spitual contemplation is evident throughout, and in effect, the Choir and Orchestra of the Collegium Vocale create a very absorbing recording which is never tedious for a second, and Ian Bostridge's youthfully lithe Evangelist and Josef Selig's effective Christ finally make for a Matthauspassion where you don't find yourself skipping over the Recitatives.
All of the arias are favorites here thanks to the fine soloists, among them: male alto, Andreas Scholl. The Soprano Sibylla Rubens has the appropriate "boyishness," cleanliness, and control for Bach. Her duet with School at the end of Part 1 ("So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen") is the most historically convincing, as well as beautiful, I have ever heard on record.
The double chorus is correctly sized according to Bach's own preferences. In fact, Gardiner's choirs are oversized. Only Herreweghe's uses the most realistic proportions.
Harmonia Mundi's sound quality is clear as a bell. Both orchestras and both choirs are equally audible making every chorale, chorus, and turbae chorus very dramatic indeed (compared to the relatively poor sound quality of the Gardiner recording where the second choir is barely audible, or sounds as though they're placed at the end of some long tunnel, causing Gardiner's forces to lose their "weightiness" in many parts).
This is an overwhelmingly beautiful record, but Herreweghe also keeps in mind that this is sacred music, that is: it is written for the church, and he seems to balance everything out just perfectly.
Philippe Herreweghe's 3+1 CD set is strongly recommended to all Bach lover's alike. But if you still insist on hearing Gardiner's side of the story, buy Gardiner's Highlights of the St. Matthew Passion AND Herreweghe's Complete St. Matthew Passion.