early music review

Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe
107:08 (2 CDs in a card tryptych)
PHI LPH031

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From the opening bars, this performance has life, drive and commitment. The first thing you notice is the immediacy of the choral sound: the 16 singers, who properly include the four singers of the arias – such luminaries as Dorothea Mields, Damian Guillon, Robin Tritschler and Peter Kooij – but not the Evangelist and Jesus, are clear and powerful – they sound very close and engaged as the turba.  

This performance gives us the habitual mix of versions, and is a real contrast to Rademann’s 1749 version, that anticipates the classically inspired performance tradition. Herreweghe has violas d’amore and a lute, but no harpsichord or bassono grosso, mandated in the 1749 version. Much of the booklet’s essay is devoted to justifying this mixed bag approach on the grounds that Bach never produced a ‘final version’. By the time we have read this essay in English, French, German and Dutch, there is room only for a list of players and singers and the text in four parallel columns. So there are no bios, and no information on the organ or any other instruments, and not even a link to a website for further information.  

The continuo with the Evangelista and others is simple: a small organ with a principal tone and the string bass – often including 16’ – and they provide much of the dramatic impetus. While other singers are absolutely splendid, I am slightly less convinced by Maximillian Schmitt, the evangelist: I prefer my narrators a bit less singerly – more sprechgesang than operatic declamation, and he seems to have only one style. But the entire singing team properly takes centre-stage and the turba exchanges are crisp and well integrated in a way that can scarcely be achieved by a separate and distant ‘choir’.

The arias are well-paced – the lute is used in Ich folge and in Erwege, giving a degree of transparency to the texture there which allows Patrick Tritschler’s voice space to bloom. Putting all of part II onto the second CD allows the chiastic structure formed around Durch dein Gefängnis to be appreciated, and the dramatic intensity of the turba’s interchanges to mount. In Eilt, the overlapping but rhythmically independent lines of the upper strings, the basso continuo – helped by the bassoon and by wonderful violone playing – and the bass singer are each given their freedom, and the result is an urgent hastening of individual voices, but with no sense of rush. The rhythmic punch here is continued into Lasset uns den nicht zerteilen, which I have rarely heard so well done: everything neat and balanced but at a cracking pace.

Damian Guillon has exactly the right voice for Es ist vollbracht, where the central section trembles with suppressed excitement, and Peter Kooij could not be bettered in Mein teurer Heiland, where it was welcome to have no doubling 16’ tone on the spiccato violoncello line that introduces the D major foreshadowing of the resurrection, a theological insight which Bach the Lutheran theologian has grasped in the Johannine theology of the Passion – the gospel narrative that the church has always read on Good Fridays. The seemingly effortlessly soaring voice of Dorothea Mields in Zerfließe gives way to repeated sobs on ‘Tod’, which I have come to think is the right way to interpret the trill written there, and the lute is a telling addition to the traverso and oboe da caccia.

All in all this is an outstanding version, coherent and well thought out, with the dynamics and style of the chorales integrated into the overall scheme, and directed and performed by musicians who understand what they are doing and how Bach’s Lutheran formation has given us the ever-changing, ever vital John Passion with no one ‘right way’ of performing it.

David Stancliffe

Elizabeth Watts, Benno Schachtner, Patrick Grahl (arias & Evangelist), Harvey (Christus), Winckhler (arias & Pilatus), Gaechinger Cantorey, Hans-Christoph Rademann
108:03 (2 CDs)
Carus 83.313

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Rademann makes the central chorale – Durch dein Gefängnis – in the key of E major the dividing point between the two CDs in his recording of the 1749 version of the John Passion which is intelligent theologically, as it is the hinge point in the central section of Bach’s Johannespaßion. But this means we miss the immediate pick-up by the Evangelist of Die Jüden aber schrieen that leads us into the chorus Lässest du diesen los and reveals the chiastic structure of Bach’s setting of the trial before Pilate. This central section hinges on the questions of Jesus’ origin – where does he come from? can he really be a king? and how can a man who is bound seem so free? – while he displays such surprising calm when confronted by the crowds baying for his blood. This is where the structural dilemma for conductors of the John Passion is laid bare: with the very unequal division of material between parts I and II, how do you best arrange it on a pair of CDs when theologically it falls into three sections?

Rademann has just finished his complete Schütz, which is exemplary in terms of HIP, where the right vocal forces are matched with elegant instrumentation. However, this performance of the 1749 version is a bit more in the old-style German mode, with 5.4.3.2.1 strings, 2 harpsichords and the contrabassoon to match the newly named 25-strong Gaechinger Cantorey. A photograph of their John Passion in last year’s Bachwoche in Ansbach shows them stacked behind the instrumental ensemble, with the Evangelist, Christus and aria singers – a different bass singing Pilatus and the arias – seated at the side and taking no part in the choral numbers, but ready to step out and stand in front of the ‘orchestra’ as soloists.

The opening chorus feels a bit slow with its four heavy beats: not even the middle section can feel two in a bar. And the suspensions in the flute and oboe parts are only just sufficiently audible above the massed strings and voices. This solidity extends into the succeeding section, where the narrative – beautifully sung by the excellent Patrick Grahl, an ex-Thomaner and as good in the arias as in his clear and well-enunciated Evangelista – is punctuated by massive chords on the harpsichord and even the 16’ at times as well as the ‘cello and organ. Peter Harvey is a magisterial and well-honed Christus while Matthias Winckhler takes Pilatus and the bass arias. He is a good foil for Peter Harvey, and the interchange with Jesus at the heart of the central section is very powerful dramatically.

The organ is a copy of a small organ by Gottfried Silbermann made for the Bachakadamie Stuttgart, and has more principal tone than we are accustomed to, which is a plus, but adds to the solidity of the narrative, where chords are often held long.

The chorales are performed four-square, with pauses at the end of the lines, and the whole manages to convey the rather late Baroque feel of this latest version of John Passion, with its occasionally specific changes not only to the texts but to the scoring – the contrabassoon, the muted violin not only in the Betrachte and what now becomes Mein Jesu, ach! rather than Erwege but also playing with the traverso in Zerfließe. The choice of Elizabeth Watts as the soprano is probably reflected in this desire to go for a later sound. Her vibrato is enormous in Zerfließe, though it is more restrained in Ich folge, where the heavy bass line is particularly noticeable. The dramatic possibilities are fully exploited at the end, where Ruht wohl dies away to very little, and then the final chorale crescendos right through.

So this will not probably become a favourite version of those who like the leaner sound associated with a more pared-down version of the earlier scoring and where the aria singers, the Christus and Evangelista are all part of the choro. But thorough-going 1749 versions are a rarity, and we should be grateful for this committed performance which gives a real insight into the developments in the late Baroque sound-world as it comes closer to the classical tradition in which so many people have experienced their Bach.

David Stancliffe