Nola Richardson, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Thomas Cooley, Harrison Hintzsche ScTTBar, Cantata Collective, directed by Nicholas McGegan
70:00
Avie AV2756
Following their St John Passion recorded at a live performance in 2022, which I reviewed in August 2024, the Cantata Collective under Nic McGegan have now produced a CD with the Easter Oratorio (BWV 249) and the Magnificat (BWV 243.2). Much the same forces are employed, though some of the members – both singers and players – have changed for this 2024 recording. These are fairly traditional performances with a chorus of 6.4.3.3 (or 3.3.3.3.3 for the Magnificat), plus four independent soloists and a string band of 3.3.2.1.1. McGegan himself is shown in the photographs standing in front of a harpsichord with the organ at the back, though I fail to detect any actual use of the harpsichord. The chorus is well drilled and sings with commitment: most of the voices are well-suited to the music, although there are some among the sopranos and altos who sing with more vibrato than I would like.
When it comes to the soloists, the two singers I singled out for praise – the tenor Thomas Cooley and the bass baritone Harrison Hintzsche – in the John Passion are singing on this CD also. So are Nola Richardson and the countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. Cohen has a florid voice, and clearly has considerable experience in opera, but sings well in ensembles with other singers; he is at his best in the Magnificat where he balances well with Cooley in Et misericordia, and with the two sopranos in Suscepit Israel. His Esurientes is a delight and quite different from his over-histrionic Saget in the Easter Oratorio. Cooley is imperious in the Deposuit and sensitive partner in Et misericordia, while he and Hintzsche make a good pair in the dialogue sections of the Easter Oratorio between the disciples Peter and John. In the 1725 original version, parodied for Easter day from a secular cantata composed only three months earlier, it was clearly sung one voice to a part by an SATB quartet of named characters following the secular version from which it was parodied. This explains why the B section of the opening chorus has a duet – sung here by all the tenor and basses rather than the T and B soloists – which feels strange in the middle of the ‘chorus’ which it became by the 1743 revision when the opening chorus had been rewritten for SATB. I do not share the press’s enthusiasm for Nola Richardson: I find her voice over-produced for this period of music, and thought I detected a real star in Tonia d’Amelio, plucked from the chorus to sing the second soprano part in Suscepit Israel, though she is not given the second soprano aria Et exultavit earlier, whose voice is sweet and true.
The other matter to mention is that McGegan follows the 19th-century tradition of changing the tempo between Quia respexit and omnes generationes – two parts of the same verse – going off at a good gallop, for which there is no textual authority, although it is what we have all grown up with. But do not let this deflect you from what is a perfectly produced example of the offshoots of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra of which Nic McGegan is now the Music Director Laureate. This is the premier Bay Area period instrument band, and deserves its outstanding reputation.
The overall impression of this well-chosen pairing is of a bouncy and jubilant celebration of the resurrection, with well-balanced scoring and judicious tempi set by McGegan, a past master at getting the overall feel exactly right.
David Stancliffe