Bach Passions recommendations please

[Jose Echenique]

Helmut Rilling may be the last Bach specialist that refused to embrace period performance practice. The few that still are allergic to gut strings and valveless horns and trumpets can find in his music making an antidote to the hip movement, but really, at this late stage he is like the last of the T-Rexes.

[Ciaran]

Helmut Rilling may be the last Bach specialist that refused to embrace period performance practice. The few that still are allergic to gut strings and valveless horns and trumpets can find in his music making an antidote to the hip movement, but really, at this late stage he is like the last of the T-Rexes.

Rilling usually gets very nice singers, but I find his recordings intolerable: devoid of the spirit of dance that animates everything in Bach.

I'd second José on the most recent Harnoncourt 3 as the best Matthew Passion, but I also like McCreesh's pioneering one-to-a-part recording. A lot. After BAL recommended John Butt's Matthew Passion last year I bought it, despite my reservations about Jeremy Summerly's review. Butt's recording was fine, but it didn't grip and excite like Harnoncourt and McCreesh.

I was listening to Suziki's John Passion last night and I really like that. Also very good: Ton Koopman,



the Ricercar Consort under Philippe Pierlot



the Taverner Consort and Players under Andrew Parrott:

[Jose Echenique]

<I'd second José on the most recent Harnoncourt 3 as the best Matthew Passion, but I also like McCreesh's pioneering one-to-a-part recording. A lot. After BAL recommended John Butt's Matthew Passion last year I bought it, despite my reservations about Jeremy Summerly's review. Butt's recording was fine, but it didn't grip and excite like Harnoncourt and McCreesh.>

And I second your view on the McCreesh, it´s so much better than the Dunedin. McCreesh had the good sense (or money) to hire some truly extraordinary singers like Magdalena Kozena whose "Erbarme dich" is heavenly. If there´s any criticism to be made is that the Gabrieli Players could have been better, the solo violin in Erbarme dich for example, is not nearly as expressive and beautiful as the singing of Kozena. Still, it is the best recording so far in the one-per-part fashion. I still have my doubts if this could really work live. For example, in the McCreesh recording, Mark Padmore, sings: the Evangelist, the tenor arias and the choruses, that amounts almost to the role of Siegfried in the Wagner opera.
In studio conditions though, it can be very beautiful, as is in general the McCreesh recording.
Harnoncourt on the other hand offers the traditional view of the Passion as sacred drama, his is the most operatic (in a good sense) and tragic of all recordings, and his singers are just magnificent.
The Dunedin is never less than very good, but let´s admit that his singers are nowhere in the class of Bernarda Fink or Magdalena Kozena. On the positive side it is VERY well recorded.

[markof]

Thanks again for your recommendations.
Changed my order for the Matthew to the Harnoncourt version on your recommendation.

I really enjoyed the Dunedin John Passion over the weekend.
This performance places the work within a liturgical context and includes organ chorales and preludes by Bach, Buxtehude and Schutz along with responses, sympathetic with the origins and purpose of the work. The quality of the recording is excellent (a 24/192 digital download), wonderfully clear soloists, great dynamics, presence and ambience. The extra materials, sleeve notes etc. are very good but I haven't got around to the 18th. Century Lutheran sermon quite yet. There is also an analysis of the piece by Butt on the linn site.

To continue in this vein, any suggestions for a Holy Week playlist?

Mark.

[Ciaran]

To continue in this vein, any suggestions for a Holy Week playlist?

Mark.

Haydn's Seven Last Words in the original orchestral version he wrote for Cadíz Cathedral. I like the performance by Jordí Savall and Le Concert des Nations, with the appropriate "words" in Latin atmospherically spoken between movements:



(The work was hugely successful and Haydn cashed in with three arrangements: oratorio (apparently partly because he got wind of someone else starting on one!), string quartet and piano solo, the last two possibly not entirely by Haydn.)

Pergolesi's Stabat Mater: there are many wonderful versions of this. When it was considered on "Building a Library" the winner was



Maria Schiavo and Stephanie d'Oustrac with La Capella de' Turchini under Anotonio Florio, which is excellent. I have many others, as it is such a delectable work. Then there's Vivaldi's Stabat Mater:



in which I like Carlos Mena and the Ricercar Consort... as well as several others!

[Diapason]

Or if you want to feel truly penitential and engage in some aural self-flagellation, there's always Stainer's Crucifixion:

[Seán]

and Allegri's Miserere.

[fergus]

Or if you want to feel truly penitential and engage in some aural self-flagellation, there's always Stainer's Crucifixion:

Only when played by you Simon!!!

[Jose Echenique]

Haydn´s The 7 Last Words of Christ certainly, but I much prefer the Frans Brüggen version on Glossa to either of Jordi Savall´s recordings. If you prefer the string quartet version there is always the incomparable Quatuor Mosaïques recording on Naïve. The recitations of the priest in the Savall tend to be a burden on repeated hearings, besides, Brüggen sustains the reflective adagios better than the more impatient Savall.
I also mentioned in the other thread Johann Fux´s oratorio La Deposizione della Croce in the Novalis label, somewhat difficult to find, but a musical treasure of tremendous importance.
The Handel and Telemann Brockes Passions (both share the same libretto) are both very fine. The Telemann with René Jacobs conducting is especially fine.

[Ciaran]

Haydn´s The 7 Last Words of Christ certainly, but I much prefer the Frans Brüggen version on Glossa to either of Jordi Savall´s recordings.

I must try it: Savall (actually his earlier version) is my only recording, and I must say I was delighted to hear the orchestral version: for some reason the string quartet version was the only one you could easily get for years!

The Handel and Telemann Brockes Passions (both share the same libretto) are both very fine. The Telemann with René Jacobs conducting is especially fine.

Now that is a fine recording: