BaL 8.10.22 - Bach: St Matthew Passion

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Munchinger was a revelation when it came out in the mid 60s with beautiful presentation from Decca. The speeds seem slow by today’s standards but the competition then was Klemperer when one needed a calendar to time it.
My benchmark today is Suzuki’s latest.

Munchinger is indeed very fine in this work, but as I mentioned the last time around, there's a rather stark example of 'cold-nose stereo' in the opening chorus. In order to separate the choruses cleanly, the engineers went a bit far (in a Phase 4 kind of way). Listen through normal stereo speakers, and the result is fine, but on headphones it's quite bizarre.

[Mal]

I only have one:

Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra, Hungarian Festival Choir, Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir, Geza Oberfrank (Naxos)

Listening to the first CD again, I think the choir is problematic. Although sounding "pleasant" I think more verve is needed. Also enunciation isn't great - I found it difficult to match text to singing, though had no problem with the soloists. The choirs lack of involvement was really shown up in the passages involving choir & the excellent evangelist - a really turned on Jozsef Mukk.

So which choir performance do you like?

[Mal]

What's going on? It isn't Easter!

Previous BaL recommendations:

Nicholas Anderson (April 94): Koopman + Richter as mid-price choice

Simon Heighes (March 02): Harnoncourt's 2000 recording + Richter (mid-price modern instruments choice) + Koopman & Max (joint period instruments choices) + Vaughan Williams (historic recording choice)

Jeremy Summerly (April 12): Butt + honourable mentions to Willcocks (Elgar arr.)/Vaughan Williams/Richter + Suzuki's 1999 recording as a full choral recording + Harnoncourt's 1970 recording

Summerly, at least, is still up on the BBC web site. Interesting that the others choose Richter! Summerly did play clips of Richter, and they impressed me more than anything - they just might fix my "trying to find an engaged & dramatic choir" problem. I wasn't convinced by Summerly's arguments for single voices replacing the choir, and the clips certainly didn't persuade me. Richter (1958) is also Rob Cowan's choice in his Guinness guide.

[RichardB]

I wasn't convinced by Summerly's arguments for single voices replacing the choir

Actually, what are the arguments for replacing Bach's single voices with a choir?

[Mal]

Actually, what are the arguments for replacing Bach's single voices with a choir?

I was thinking I might need a large choir to provide enough weight to keep me happy. But, having now listened to the opening chorus from both Richter & Butt on Spotify, my thinking has been demolished! One big advantage of single voices is clarity of the vocal line, plus they all sound involved (no hiding in the choir!) I couldn't follow the words, fully, in either the Oberfrank or Richter performances, but could in the Dunedin Butt's orchestra provides enough weight, and the intensity of the soloists give them enough presence. So now I'm preferring Dunedin! (I don't think Summerly played enough clips - although that may not be his fault, don't they cut the clips in the podcasts for copyright reasons?)

[BBMmk2]

Strange to have a review of this masterpiece. Never mind. Be interesting to see what recording comes out trumps?!?!? I have Jochum, Gardiner and Herreweghe.

[Mal]

Does anyone listen to the whole performance every time (or more than once...)? I started out with good intentions, but admit to skipping the evangelist by the second CD.

[RichardB]

Does anyone listen to the whole performance every time (or more than once...)? I started out with good intentions, but admit to skipping the evangelist by the second CD.

I always feel it's necessary to put aside the time to hear Bach's musical-dramatic structure unfold and to concentrate on what's being said at every moment. Then, for example, the final chorus takes on a depth and emotional significance that it might not otherwise have if it hasn't been reached through everything that's come before. (I have to admit that I don't always make it to the end though.) Returning to John Butt's recording, which I did listen to the other day from start to finish, I think that something it brings home more strongly than any other recording until now is the sense that, while this work is one of the high points of human achievement in art, it is also a rather intimate kind of storytelling ritual that belongs to a particular time, place and community, rather than something monumental in a sense that developed after Bach's time.

[gurnemanz]

I see Matthäus-Passion from Raphaël Pichon with the Pygmalion Ensemble have just won the Choral section in this year's Gramophone Awards.

https://www.prestomusic.com/classica...22-the-winnershttps://www.gramophone.co.uk/awards/...ds-2022/choral

[Joseph K]

Returning to John Butt's recording, which I did listen to the other day from start to finish, I think that something it brings home more strongly than any other recording until now is the sense that, while this work is one of the high points of human achievement in art, it is also a rather intimate kind of storytelling ritual that belongs to a particular time, place and community, rather than something monumental in a sense that developed after Bach's time.

Butt's version was actually delivered here on Monday. I think I'll give the first disk a spin tonight... I have the score but will instead make use of the words in the booklet instead.

[silvestrione]

Actually, what are the arguments for replacing Bach's single voices with a choir?

Bach himself is on record as asking for 4 or 5 voices per part....

[RichardB]

Bach himself is on record as asking for 4 or 5 voices per part....

Where would that be exactly? The evidence for his using one voice per part in concerted church music is pretty convincing. I don't know if you've read Andrew Parrott's The Essential Bach Choir - I went into it thinking "but surely it can't have been like that" and came out thinking "how could it possibly have been any other way"?

[silvestrione]

Where would that be exactly? The evidence for his using one voice per part in concerted church music is pretty convincing. I don't know if you've read Andrew Parrott's The Essential Bach Choir - I went into it thinking "but surely it can't have been like that" and came out thinking "how could it possibly have been any other way"?

In Christoph Wolff's The Learned Musician (bio of JSB) he quotes a memorandum or similar, that Bach wrote in one of his major posts, in which he says that that number is ideal. I would have to get it out of the library again to quote it! (I thought you knew it...)

I wasn't offering an argument, of course, only wanting to qualify your phrase 'Bach's single voices'...

I am afraid I still haven't listened to an OVPP version: I listen to it once a year around Easter, all through (well, sometimes Part One one night, Two the next), and am horrified at the very idea of listening without the Evangelist.

[RichardB]

In Christoph Wolff's The Learned Musician (bio of JSB) he quotes a memorandum or similar, that Bach wrote in one of his major posts, in which he says that that number is ideal.

Indeed, but those forces weren't for performing concerted vocal ensemble music like cantatas and passions.

(edit) Wolff states that Bach's Entwurff einer wohlbestallten Kirchen Music, which is presumably the document you're referring to, "simply does not allow for a reconstruction of the composition of the actual vocal-instrumental ensemble". Andrew Parrott: "The overwhelming majority of Bach's church music survives in sets of parts - evidently complete - which have just a single copy for each voice-part. Thus a tenor part may, for example, contain recitatives, arias and all choruses. In virtually every case this means there are four vocal partbooks, and four only." This is one among many arguments put forward in his book The Essential Bach Choir and a whole series of essays that address various scholars' objections to them. (Christoph Wolff himself has made almost no contribution to the debate.)

[silvestrione]

Indeed, but those forces weren't for performing concerted vocal ensemble music like cantatas and passions.

(edit) Wolff states that Bach's Entwurff einer wohlbestallten Kirchen Music, which is presumably the document you're referring to, "simply does not allow for a reconstruction of the composition of the actual vocal-instrumental ensemble". Andrew Parrott: "The overwhelming majority of Bach's church music survives in sets of parts - evidently complete - which have just a single copy for each voice-part. Thus a tenor part may, for example, contain recitatives, arias and all choruses. In virtually every case this means there are four vocal partbooks, and four only." This is one among many arguments put forward in his book The Essential Bach Choir and a whole series of essays that address various scholars' objections to them. (Christoph Wolff himself has made almost no contribution to the debate.)

Sounds a little bit like special pleading to me...Certainly none of it confirms what Bach wanted, (...'overwhelming majority'...what does that cover?) which the document I remember did. I will get the book out again! Don't think my library runs to the Andrew Parrott.

However, I liked the way you described the Passion above, as a more intimate and community based event than, e.g. the Karl Richter version. Next Easter, I'll give OVPP a go!