It has become the practice of the last 40 years to perform Bach's choral
works with ever more slender forces, to the extent that one wonders just
how much further can this process go? Certainly no-one could recommend a
return to the heavy ponderous performances with great bellowing choruses
and the best part of a full symphony orchestra - such as those conducted
by Vaughan Williams in the 1950's and before.
At the other extreme, it is legitimate to ask if reduction to chamber music
does not rob the works of their weight and grandeur? The numbers for this
recording of the St John Passion by The Scholars Baroque Ensemble must surely
be the irreducible minimum; just 23 performers fill the roles of soloists,
chorus and orchestra. In reality they are a string octet (5+1+1+1) with vocal
and woodwind soloists - surely inadequate for a large concert hall or cathedral
performance. And yet, almost miraculously, this recording works to brilliant
effect - especially bearing in mind that a CD is primarily intended to be
heard not in a big space but in listeners' homes. There are considerations
of quality as well as quantity and these are much in evidence here: virtuosity
of individual soloists, sustained sonorities, clarity of music texture and
diction, judicious balance both within and between the instrumental and vocal
groupings, and, supremely, a sensitivity to the work's spiritual and dramatic
properties.
Another important commendation is the quality of phrasing and tempi which
perfectly match the innate nature of the music. With one unfortunate exception,
the rushed tempi and excessive mannerisms which all too often characterise
modern "authentic" baroque performance are mercifully absent.
The woodwind obbligati in the Part 1 arias and towards the end of Part 2
are of breathtaking beauty. The woodwind are silent for the profoundly anguished
sections of Part 2 and here the string playing (including viole d'amore,
viola da gamba and lute) convey the deep poignancy of the scourging and
crucifixion.
Robin Doveton is a fine dramatic evangelist and the bass and counter-tenor
arias of Adrian Peacock and Angus Davidson have lyric mellow qualities. The
one exception to this otherwise uniformly fine performance is the bass aria
with chorus Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen, where the "Eilt" (hurry,
rush) is overdone, becoming just a bit too sprightly and leggerio
for the circumstances of Golgotha.
This recording repays repeated playing; the listener is drawn more and more
into the spiritual depths of the Passion with each repetition. They are ideal
discs for quiet meditative contemplation.
Reviewer:
Humphrey Smith
The Scholars Baroque
Ensemble: artistic coordinator David van Asch, Organ: Bernhardt Junghänel
