This fine set of the
four major choral works by Bach has
a cast featuring the late-lamented sopranos
Arleen Auger and Lucia Popp, who both
died tragically and all too soon within
five months of each other in 1993. It
is part of the Complete Collections
boxed sets put out by BMG-RCA Red Seal,
which include all the symphonies by
Beethoven, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams,
Bruckner and Brahms. There is a caveat;
don’t be fooled by the allure of a 40-page
booklet, for assuming you do not wish
to read the French and German versions,
what you get comes out at 24 pages of
historical background but with no biographical
details of the performers, nor translations
of the Latin or German texts. The composer
Mauricio Kagel has given a wonderfully
pithy description of Bach’s status in
the scheme of humankind, ‘certainly
not all people believe in God, but all
musicians believe in Bach’. Never a
truer word, but this reviewer would
add ‘thank God for God for without God
there would be very little music by
Bach’, and what is left would pale into
insignificance alongside these miracles
which were written for the greater glory
of the Creator. It is hard to grasp
that Bach’s music faded into obscurity
for almost eighty years after his death
in 1750, and that when Burney writes
of Bach in 1772 he means Carl Philipp
Emmanuel rather than his far more illustrious
father Johann Sebastian. Yet Bach was
by no means unknown, but appealed in
a far more cerebral and analytical way
to artists from Mozart to Goethe (who
would have the Well-tempered Clavier
played to him while he lay down, eyes
closed). When Mendelssohn performed
the St Matthew Passion on 11
March 1829, he unleashed a renaissance
of unparalleled proportions and did
Mankind as great a service as God had
in creating Bach in the first place.
Never mind that his realisation of the
score was far from authentic, he gave
Bach’s music the sense of timelessness
that persists to this day. He wrote
all four of the works under discussion
at St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig where
he was Cantor from 1723 until his death.
The B minor Mass was never performed
in his lifetime, nor was it intended
for liturgical purposes, and its composition
took over sixteen years, often plundering
his own previous works. It remains at
the pinnacle of Baroque vocal music.
But then where does that place his St
Matthew Passion? Comparison is invidious
and one can understand Nietzsche, usually
a hardened sceptic, when he wrote that
he heard it ‘with the feeling of immeasurable
awe’. The conditions under which Bach
wrote it and the St John Passion
defy credibility for the texts had to
be submitted to the theological censor
before being passed for performance.
Finally the Christmas Oratorio,
a compilation of six cantatas rather
than a continuous oratorio written for
two year’s worth of Christmas celebrations
between Christmas Day and the Epiphany.
These then are the miracles of creation
which are now so familiar to us.
Schreier, tenor turned
conductor, takes sprightly tempi from
the outset of the Kyrie in the
Mass, the choral textures nicely
translucent as each contrapuntal thread
weaves its way through the movement.
Wind solos are carefully balanced against
a finely judged number of string players,
despite some lumpy singing from the
Leipzig Radio Chorus’s bass section.
The sopranos are bright while the phrasing
has a good feel for forward shape and
architecture. Bulges in dynamics at
the tied notes in the strings unfortunately
overstress the introduction to the sublime
duet which follows (Christe eleison),
more than compensated for by an excellent
blend of voices between Popp and Watkinson,
which recurs in Et in unum Dominum
in the Creed. This and other exaggerated
mannerisms tend to become a feature
of the Schreier view of Bach’s style,
for rather than leave the music to speak
for itself he tends to add points of
articulation which are plainly not in
the musical text, such as the start
of the Gratias and its overcooked
and unnecessary Grrr. The chorus
sopranos occasionally lose focus of
pitch above the stave in this incredibly
demanding music, but a fine element
of the performance is the Gloria
with impressive high-wire playing by
the Collegium Musicum’s trumpeters,
indeed the instrumental playing is of
the highest order throughout, including
a wonderful softness of string sound
achieved in the Domine Deus,
crowned by sublime flute playing. Popp
shows what a fine singer she was in
this movement alone, ably supported
by the musical phrasing of tenor Eberhard
Büchner. Adam’s magisterial Quoniam
is superbly accompanied by a brilliant
solo piccolo trumpet and a duo of growling
bassoons octaves below, underlining
Bach’s colourful and imaginative orchestrations.
Enoch zu Guttenberg’s
interpretations of both Passions are
strongly dramatic, with plenty of emphasis
on forward orchestral sound and vivid
choral colour. While Hamberger’s dramatically
involved and engaging Evangelist is
brightly toned by crisp diction and
intense energy, it is impossible to
identify which of the three basses is
singing at any one moment, a victim
of booklet-content economy (the singer
of Jesus is foggy-toned in comparison
and too frequently just under the note).
The choral sound produces a cohesive
blend and balance, but again, as with
Schreier in the B minor Mass, the conductor
has infused the phrasing in the chorales
with overdone mannerisms, so their strengths
lie in the drama of which they are observers
as in Greek tragedy. Marshall’s dark-toned
voice bridges both soprano and mezzo
tessituras, but the lower register
tends to spread on occasion, nevertheless
her flowing account of Buss und Reu
pleases. Orchestral solo contributions
are satisfying, the close sound showing
the twenty-year advance in recording
technology, though the generous resonance
of the Klosterkirche in Alpirsbach contrasts
with the clearer acoustic of the Wallfahrtskirche
in Tading, from which the massive opening
chorus of the St John benefits
greatly. The harpsichord loses the battle
of the balance between it and its continuo
cello which dominates too much and should
be much more of a partnership. Guttenberg
occasionally takes liberties such as
ignoring all pauses in the chorale Dein
Will’ gescheh’ in a seeming effort
to do something different with each
and every one of the genre - an unnecessary
and surely inauthentic approach. The
soloists are generally worthy contributors
to the proceedings here despite some
poorer work from the minor contributors
including a shrill and mercifully anonymous
Maid. The problem of anonymity persists
in the St John; one assumes that Ahnsjö
is the Evangelist in both Passions so
it is Swensen who struggles manfully
with Ach, mein Sinn, a cruelly
persistent trial of double-dotting which
taxes the best of tenors, a case of
Bach writing instrumentally for voices.
The earliest recording
of the four works is the Christmas
Oratorio and it shows in the muffled
orchestral sound until the brightness
of trumpets and sopranos penetrate the
clouded acoustic. Flämig’s interpretation
tends to be somewhat pedestrian in tempo
but, apart from the hard-edged tone
of alto Burmeister, his soloists are
of the best - Watkinson or Stutzmann
as substitutes would have made all the
difference. Schreier’s singing makes
one wonder why he took up conducting,
perhaps he had laboured under too many
Kapellmeisters, though it must
be said that he was not only the son
of a Cantor but studied both singing
and conducting. Orchestral playing is
superb in all departments, the trumpets
dazzling.
So in terms of success
it is a mixed bag, but this ten-CD box
provides an insight into the German
way of doing things-Bach since the era
of Karl Richter. Each performance has
its zenith, but the common denominator
is the fine standard of orchestral playing
which makes it worth the buying.
Christopher Fifield
BMG-RCA COMPLETE COLLECTION RED SEAL 82876-55701-2
[10 CDs: 53.33 + 56.01 + 76.58 + 54.26 +
49.35 + 55.53 + 56.41 + 62.26 + 50.46 + 51.51]
