BaL 8.10.22 - Bach: St Matthew Passion

[Joseph K]

I've just finished listening to the Dunedin Consort/Butt. Of course it's really great, I really like the oboes for example, but on Thursday I will have finished listening to the Kuijken (a disk a day) so I shall compare them then.

About to start listening to the Kuijken, score in hand. Incidentally, one reason I'm pleased I ended up buying the Butt in addition to the Kuijken in that it contains a translation of the words in the booklet (whereas the Kuijken doesn't).

[Lordgeous]

Goodness, how do you find the time, and energy?!

[Joseph K]

Goodness, how do you find the time, and energy?!

??

[Joseph K]

Well, I feel like reporting now, though I've not listened yet to all the Kuijken. I can't tell much difference between the playing in this from the Dunedin Consort, but I prefer the singing in the Kuijken and choral passages seem better balanced, and I'm noticing more details - though this could be partly because I'm following the score! And I prefer the more leisurely pace of the opening number in the Kuijken. I'm a fan of clarity so the one-voice-per-part works well, naturally (though I mention this just as a general comment, since both versions I've been listening to share this feature).

But still it's worth repeating what an awesome work this is. I recall being not as impressed with this when I was a teenager - having found the B minor mass an amazing work, I wasn't so enamoured of all these recitatives. Now, well of course I can accept these things and take an interest in how the various forms evolve through the work - recitatives, chorales, arias etc - and how aspects of for example one recitative might encapsulate the longer form of the piece, which I recall describing as an 'accretion of dissonance' like a build-up of tension, within one recitative that I analysed during my first year at uni.

[RichardB]

Well, I feel like reporting now, though I've not listened yet to all the Kuijken. I can't tell much difference between the playing in this from the Dunedin Consort, but I prefer the singing in the Kuijken and choral passages seem better balanced, and I'm noticing more details - though this could be partly because I'm following the score! And I prefer the more leisurely pace of the opening number in the Kuijken. I'm a fan of clarity so the one-voice-per-part works well, naturally (though I mention this just as a general comment, since both versions I've been listening to share this feature).

But still it's worth repeating what an awesome work this is. I recall being not as impressed with this when I was a teenager - having found the B minor mass an amazing work, I wasn't so enamoured of all these recitatives. Now, well of course I can accept these things and take an interest in how the various forms evolve through the work - recitatives, chorales, arias etc - and how aspects of for example one recitative might encapsulate the longer form of the piece, which I recall describing as an 'accretion of dissonance' like a build-up of tension, within one recitative that I analysed during my first year at uni.

Very well put. The way this composition expresses its structure on many different levels is so far in advance of what any composer of Bach's time (and most since that time also!) even thought worth considering is one of its most astonishing features.