St John Passion (BWV245) (1749 version)
Werner Güra (tenor, Evangelist)
Johannes Weisser (bass arias/Christus)
Andrew Redmond (bass, Petrus)
Johannes Schendel (bass, Pilatus)
Sunhae Im (soprano arias)
Benno Schachtner (alto arias)
Sebastian Kohlhepp (tenor arias)
Fabienne Weiss (soprano, Ancilla)
Minsub Hong (tenor, Servus)
RIAS Kammerchor, Staats- und Domchor Berlin
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/René Jacobs
rec. Teldex Studio, Berlin, July 2015. DDD/DSD
Texts and translations included
HARMONIA MUNDI HMC802236/37 SACD [106:12]
Reviewed as 24-bit download from eclassical.com, with pdf booklet. Also available in mp3 and 16-bit lossless and from dealers on 2 SACDS + DVD.
With wonderfully misconceived timing Harmonia Mundi
released this recording on Good Friday. That was fine if you were streaming
or downloading: I did both on the day, streaming the 16-bit from
classicsonline.com,
with booklet, while downloading the 24-bit from
eclassical.com.
I had expected to obtain it from Qobuz but it was not then available.
My complaint is on behalf of those who ordered the discs only to have
them arrive several days too late and anyone reading this review who
will have waited even longer. On the other hand, I enjoyed hearing on
the day what has been my favourite of the two regular Bach Passions
ever since I fell in love with it on Good Friday 1958 on a broadcast
in Germany where I was being trained as a ‘teamer’ by an
international youth organisation.
The eclassical.com version comes in 24-bit sound for a reasonable $28.67,
with mp3 and 16-bit at $23.90, making the classicsonline.com version
over-priced as a download at £20.81 (16-bit), with no 24-bit equivalent.
Considering that the regular price for the discs is around £24, with
special offers at present reducing the set to around £20, only the eclassical.com
download is worth considering. Even then one misses out on the bonus
DVD.
If you own or have heard René Jacobs’ earlier recording of the
St Matthew Passion, you will have some idea what to expect in the St
John which he has here recorded for the first time, though he has appeared
as a soloist in Bach Passion arias with Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite
Bande on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi. My own reaction is similar to that
expressed in
Download
News 2014/3 when I wrote of the St Matthew that though I preferred
John Eliot Gardiner (DG) or John Butt (Linn), if this were my only Desert
Island recording of this great music I wouldn’t look the proverbial
gift horse in the mouth.
Bach revised the St John Passion regularly between the first performance
in 1724 and the final revision which he made in 1749, a year before
his death. There’s a bewildering array of versions in the various
recordings, some of which employ the original or a particular revision
while others choose eclectically between them.
Three years ago Linn gave us John Butt’s reconstruction with his Dunedin
Consort of the St John in its original liturgical context
within Lutheran Vespers for the afternoon of Good Friday. For that purpose
he attempted to reconstruct the text of 1739 rather than that contained
in the familiar Neue Bach-Ausgabe. (Linn CKD419: Recording of
the Month – review
–
Download
News 2013/4.) Though I’m not a strong proponent of the one-to-a-part
school of Bach singing, it works very well on the Linn recording and
it’s very good to have the elements of Lutheran Vespers to take
or leave.
The new recording uses the familiar text which Bach dictated to a copyist
towards the end of his life but it’s possible also to download
a high-res recording of the 1725 version for comparison. The main recording
consists of the conventional 40 numbers, commencing with the opening
Exordium, Herr, unser Herrscher, substituted for O
Mensch bewein dein Sünde groß, after Bach transferred that to the
St Matthew Passion, and concluding with Ach Herr, laß dein lieb
Engelein.
In addition there are four items from the 1725 version to download:
the opening O Mensch bewein dein Sünde groß, one aria for bass
and soprano and two for tenor. At the time of writing it was not apparent
how to access these. If you are looking for a reconstruction of the
1724/1725 St John you need to turn to Richard Egarr with the Academy
of Ancient Music on their own label (AAM002 – Download
News 2014/3).
René Jacobs employs several singers to a part, thus bringing the
new recording more directly into competition with the two recordings
of John Eliot Gardiner, the earlier for DG (4193242 or in 9-CD set with
St Matthew Passion, b-minor Mass and Christmas Oratorio, 4697692)
and the more recent for his own SDG label (SDG712: Recording of the
Month –
review).
It’s a pretty tall ask to match or surpass those two Gardiner
recordings and I can’t say that Jacobs brings it off. The 9-CD
DG set is a particularly strong recommendation even if you have other
recordings of some of its contents.
At the risk of sounding off-message, it’s the especially dramatic
narration that may be your deciding factor concerning the Jacobs recording.
Other versions may match the abrupt violence of Barrabas aber war
ein Mörder but the interchanges between the characters are often
fast and furious. That makes the usual pause after Pilate has asked
‘what is truth?’ more effective but it comes at a price,
since the sharp-fire interchanges occasionally come at the expense of
diction.
Diction is sometimes a problem, too, because of the large size of the
chorus. In the opening Herr, unser Herrscher, the first syllable
of unser sometimes gets lost, as if all the singers had decided
to swallow it. The basic chorus consists of the four soloists and sixteen
members of the RIAS Kammerchor with seventeen extras in the chorales
(Zusätzliche Ripienisten zur Verstärkung der Choräle) plus
some unnamed contributors from the Berlin Cathedral Choir. I’ve
said that I’m not over-fussed by the question of one-to-a-part
but I do think that the new recording goes a little too far in the direction
of the ‘good old’ days; I’m surprised to see one dealer
describe it as ‘small scale’. Gardiner (SDG) uses six sopranos
and four each of altos, tenors and basses and not only achieves a cleaner
sound but is able to adopt a slightly faster and more effective tempo.
Much as I love Gardiner’s two performances – it will take
some effort to prize the 9-CD set out of my possession – Butt’s
cleaner lines and livelier tempo in this opening chorale win my vote
in the final analysis. There’s another small-scale recording –
two each of sopranos, alto, tenors and basses – to which I have
been listening recently and there Herr, unser Herrscher is
taken even faster. On Mirare Philippe Pierlot with the Ricercar Consort
dashes through in 8:13, which makes the music sound energetic but a
little perfunctory. At first hearing there’s a great deal to like
about this Pierlot recording: I plan to listen more thoroughly and report
in Download News. (MIR136).
Having been a little cool about Jacobs’ opening of Part One, I have
nothing but praise for Christus der uns selig macht, which
opens Part 2 and the choir’s representation of the crowd in the
ensuing interchange with Pilate. Indeed, as the performance progressed
I found myself warming to it much more.
The soloists remain partly as on the earlier Jacobs recording of the
St Matthew. Sunhae Im sings the soprano arias, as on the St Matthew.
There’s much less chance for the soprano to shine, or otherwise,
in the St John but Im does get to sing the beautiful Ich folge dir
gleichfalls. She has a beautifully clear tone but sounds rather
‘small’ by comparison with Joanna Lunn, who also benefits
from Gardiner’s sprightlier tempo on SDG.
Benno Schachtner is an effective alto soloist without trying to make
Von den Stricken meiner Sünden too emotional. Bernarda Fink,
however, Jacob’s alto in St Matthew, makes a slightly more emotive
appeal as Gardiner’s alto on SDG at the expense of sounding slightly
plummier; once again Gardiner’s tempo is slightly faster. In Schachtner’s
Zerfließe, mein Herze there’s no lack of emotional power.
Werner Güra is a most effective Evangelist: even the critics of the
earlier recording found him polished and believable. The other tenor
in the arias and arioso is Sebastian Kohlepp. The aria Erwäge, wie
sein blutgefärbter Rücken, in which the wounds left by the scourging
are fancifully compared to the colours of the rainbow, is one of the
few borrowings from the then hugely popular Brockes-Passion.
The soloist needs to convey the word painting without overdoing it,
and that Kohlepp achieves well.
Johannes Werner, intensely human as Christ in St Matthew, remains so
here in the same role, apart from some of the diction problems which
I have noted, and in the bass arias and arioso. He sounds lighter than
most bass soloists: I’d describe him rather as a bass-baritone
and, indeed, his web-page describes him as a baritone. His lighter voice
works well, for me at least, in Mein teurer Heiland, laß dich fragen
except that there’s less difference in timbre between him and
Kohlepp a few seconds later in the tenor arioso Mein Herz, indem
die ganze Welt.
The new Harmonia Mundi recording is good in both formats without being
outstanding. I didn’t find the 24-bit vastly better than the 16-bit
but at the time of writing the extra cost from eclassical.com is small
enough to be worth paying. One perplexing problem: I listened first
with the Sony Media Go programme which is useful for getting the track
information right for transfer to the Walkman player – not that
there was any sloppy editing with this recording, but it’s best
to check – and there was a devastating dropout in the penultimate
track. Listening again via my normal Winamp programme it wasn’t
there and it’s not there on the classicsonlinehd.com streamed
version. I have no explanation.
The booklet contains the texts of the additional 1725 tracks, which
I look forward to being able to obtain. I’m not at all clear why
they could not have been appended to the SACDs and the ordinary download:
there would have been plenty of room. The booklet also contains helpful
notes if you are having problems keeping up with the changes which Bach
made between 1724 and 1749.
Of making many recordings of the Bach Passions there seems to be no
end. Fans of René Jacobs will certainly enjoy this one of the St John
at least as much as I did. There’s far less to cause potential
controversy than is sometimes the case with his opera recordings. In
the final analysis, however, my vote still goes to John Eliot Gardiner
(DG or SDG) and among one-to-a-part performances to John Butt (Linn),
who not only persuades me that such an approach can work very well but
also places the work in its liturgical context.
Brian Wilson
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