Prom 12 - 26.07.14: JSB - St. John Passion, ZKO / Norrington

[Beresford]

Right now listening to St John Passion on Cesky Rozhlas - wonderful performance - Concerto Copenhagen under Lars Ulrik Mortensen.
Julian Prégardien (tenor), Markus Volpert (basbaryton), Kai Wessel (kontratenor), Gunta Gelgote (soprán), Pauls Putnins (basbaryton), Ieva Ezeriete (soprán) a Karlis Rutentals (tenor) . Don't know if it's "live" or studio.

http://www.rozhlas.cz/d-dur/program/#/2014-07-30

[It was live - I heard the clapping at the end]

[bluestateprommer]

Only on a few occasions did I feel the tempo a bit fast for the music, but positive feelings overall. Whether the tempi were always appropriate to the expressive intent is something some people may wish to debate. For an 8pm concert on a hot night, fast tempi were perhaps no bad thing on a practical level! Quite interesting interval discussion with Giles Fraser sitting on the fence as usual, and revealing what Bach and Wagner had in common, allegedly

On your last point, you might find this past NYT article of interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/26/arts/classical-music-of-bach-and-the-jews-in-the-st-john-passion.html

I am in some agreement with you about whether the generally brisk tempi that RN favored here were appropriate for the "occasion", although RN has obviously his own strong ideas about the musical nature of this Passion and got results, whether one agrees with it or not. Admittedly, given a choice, I would probably prefer brisker rather than overly ponderous. Also, I grant that my only other experience with this work was the one time I heard it live, back in April 2000, with Masur leading the NY Philharmonic, and a line-up of soloists that included Peter Schreier as the Evangelist. PS had a very dramatic manner when he delivered the text as the Evangelist, using his score more perhaps as a prop than actually looking at it. JG seemed a bit understated by comparison with that past memory.

[ostuni]

A lot of the swift tempi fitted well with the dramatic narrative of the SJP ( a very different beast from the SMP, as Norrington rightly pointed out). But the one which really didn't work for me was 'Es ist vollbracht’ (the alto and gamba - here, cello - one): not convinced.

Having read that the choir was Swiss, I was surprised to see a friend (English) in the front row of the altos... And at least one other Brit in the choir (as noted above): Jonathan Sells's Pilate was exceptionally good.

[Lento]

On your last point, you might find this past NYT article of interest:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/26/ar...n-passion.html

An interesting read: the article states "Bach subscribed to the notion that all humans, as sinners, bear personal responsibility for Christ's death -- especially Protestant Christians".