Seen and Heard Concert
Review
J.S. Bach, St Matthew Passion:
The King’s Consort and Choir, dir. Robert King, Soloists,
Choristers of Wells Cathedral, St John’s, Smith Square,
March 22 2005 (ME)
This concert was part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of
The King’s Consort, and also of a major European tour, taking
in various venues in Spain, Switzerland and the UK, and as always
with this group it offered polished, committed performance with
some fine solo singing, although the latter was not of uniformly
high quality. Londoners need to plan their Passions carefully
during this season, and I thought I had mine pretty well sussed
– this time, avoid the sanctimonious tedium of the Bach
Choir, give the Mendelssohn version a miss, and go for the Monteverdi
/ JEG at Cadogan Hall for the venue & to see if somehow using
soloists from the choir might just work (nice try) and for the
truly ‘professional’ version go for the KC. It was
partly the right choice, but the strengths of this performance
were very similar to that of the Monteverdi, namely the Christus
and Evangelist.
Peter Harvey comes from the English Choral Scholar tradition of
singing, but his interpretation of Christus could not be further
from that style: this is an impassioned, deeply moving realization
of the role in the style of a Goerne or a Quasthoff, the moments
of anger, as at the Disciples and their inability to keep watch
with him, dramatic without over-statement, and the exchanges with
the officials incisive. This is a beautiful voice, reminding me
very much of a young Olaf Baer: the singing of such passages as
‘Trinket alle daraus’ was very fine indeed, and he
actually brought tears to my eyes at ‘…dass er mir
zuschickte mehr denn zwölf Legion Engel?’ (‘...that
he send me more than twelve legions of angels’).
James Gilchrist is another very ‘British’ singer whose
performances I have always praised, if sometimes a little warily
since I have felt that his technique does not always allow him
the vocal agility needed in such pieces as, say, ‘Ev’ry
Valley’, but he is a very fine Evangelist: he tells the
story, if at times a little overplaying it (but that’s better
than the opposite) and carries us with the action, his comments
gripping and poignant by turns. ‘Aber am ersten Tage der
süssen Brot…’ was beautifully phrased, and he
passed the crucial tests of the heady notes in ‘dankete
und brach’s, und gab’s den Jüngern und sprach’
and of the Betrayal with flying colours, the latter’s ‘weinete’
forcefully onomatopoeic even if ‘bitterlich’ did not
quite have the right tonal edge.
The other vocal highlight was Diana Moore’s alto arias:
after ‘Du lieber Heiland du,’ I was smugly congratulating
myself on the fact that ‘you can’t go wrong with real
soloists’ but that feeling was to be short-lived –
it lasted throughout her performance, however, since ‘Erbarme
dich’ and ‘Können Tränen meiner Wangen’
were sung with burnished tone, exact diction and poignant phrasing.
Her soprano colleague, Gillian Keith, sang very sweetly but seemed
under-powered, especially in ‘Aus Liebe’ – perhaps
she was tired after such a demanding schedule. ‘Ich will
dir mein Herze schenken’ was very finely phrased although
I did wonder if anyone beyond, say, row L would have fully experienced
the beauty of the tone.
It is the bass soloist who has the largest share of the singing,
on this occasion given to the very handsome Canadian baritone
Brett Polegato: I had not come across him before and he certainly
seems to be making a mark for himself – his special love
is apparently the French song recital repertoire, and I imagine
that this would suit his high lyric baritone very well; this definition
will surprise anyone intimate with the bass solos in the SMP,
since much of the music lies very low and it requires not only
a wide range but a full and rich tone, none of which this singer
possesses, at least on this showing. He seems to have some feeling
for the music, but I had the impression that, whilst he was aware
that such lines as ‘Durch den ersten Trunk versüsset’
have special significance, he was not entirely sure what that
was, and whilst he tried to give the necessary sonority and gravity
to ‘Mache dich, mein Herze, rein’ he did not have
the resources to do it justice.
The tenor Charles Daniels certainly did once possess the resources
to give his arias the necessary drama and fluency, as one can
hear on his many recordings for Hyperion, but I don’t think
this evening showed him at his best, either because he was suffering
from fatigue or his voice is not what it was. Both arias sounded
strained, although he approached the music with his customary
commitment and attention to language. Both male soloists were
somewhat eclipsed by some superb singing of the smaller parts,
with Ben Davies and Richard Savage deserving special mention as
the High Priests – these are a couple of basses to watch.
That such a quality of singing can come ‘from the ranks’
is testament to the excellence of the Choir of the King’s
Consort, who gave wonderful performances of the great Chorales,
with that perfect blend of devotion and drama which can be so
elusive: despite a little sagging of the line at the end of ‘O
Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross’ the choir’s
attack was incisive, phrasing rounded and tone ideal, and the
dramatic outbursts such as ‘Herr, bin ich’s?’
were gripping without melodrama. The eloquent ripieno choir came
from Wells Cathedral, and numbered a few girls amongst its ranks.
The orchestral playing was at a level to match the choral singing:
the KC always has a brightness of sound and a quality of performance
that is polished yet not too suave, and this was no exception,
with especially noteworthy playing from Cassandra Luckhardt’s
viola da gamba, Christine Sticher’s double bass and the
oboes of Alexandra Bellamy and Molly Marsh.
No setting seems more appropriate to Bach than the incomparable
interior of St John’s Smith Square, so it was with some
sorrow that I realized that this would probably be the KC’s
last large-scale concert here, since from next season they will
perform in the gloriously restored, air-conditioned surroundings
of Cadogan Hall: I look forward to many great concerts there but
hope that they will still find it possible to visit St John’s,
if only for the more intimate works in the repertoire.
Melanie Eskenazi
