Rating: - transcendent
This is probably the greatest recording of the St. John Passion I have ever heard, and I have heard quite a few. The strings aren't screechy (as another review claimed); it's the timbre of the period instruments, and Gardiner uses their stridency to great effect, evoking a sense of urgency and consternation that would not be possible with modern stringed instruments. The oboes have a similar quality (and when they are combined with the strings in the first chorale it sounds almost like someone wailing in despair).
I love this recording. The soloists are beyond reproach, and the voicings are perfectly blended almost everywhere so the counterpoint is utterly clear. Most importantly, however, the tremendous depth of this music is not lost despite the intellectual rigor that Gardiner brings to the music.
Much of "historically informed" performance, unfortunately, sounds academic, dry, and purely ... Read More
Rating: - a voice teacher and early music fan
ALWAYS THE THINKER WAS J.S.B.
Johann Sebastion Bach (1685-1750), in planning his first Passion, had no model, and the defects of formal structure in the 'St. John Passion' are obvious, though their effect is negligible against the greatness of the music in all other respects. For example, after the somber and massive opening chorus, the action proceeds rapidly through the capture of Jesus to his appearing before the High Priest. The alto sings of the bondage of sin and the Evangelist has a brief sentence: 'Simon Peter followed Jesus with another desciple.' Next comes a second aria,"I follow You likewise with joyful steps.' Besides the long break in the narration, this second aria seems contradictory because Peter follows Jesus, not joyfully, but with apprehension, A much larger question concerns the repetition of certain choruses with only slight modification set to different texts. When it was thought ... Read More
Rating: - Bach is still rich, but he loses a lot here
I doubt there is such a thing as a performance of the great, moving St. John Passion without some virtue. Gardiner's reading is swift, clean, and dramaatic. But the "authentic" overlay means that we also get scrawny strings and a meager chorus, scrappy winds, and rushed tempi. The vocal soloists are hardly stellar, with only Rolfe-Johnson being first-rate. To top it off, the sound is vintage nasty early digital from DG that makes voices and strings screechy in the upper registers.
Rating: - The other great Bach Passion...
Bach supposedly wrote 5 passions, two of which survive complete. Of one only the libretto survives, and supposedly pieces of one passion exist in one of Bach's Cantatas. The St. John's Passion is the earliest extant passion of Bach's (composed in the 1720s), and, seeing that the enormous and overwhelming St.Matthew Passion also still exists complete, it has lived in the shadow of its grand predecessor. Not to mention that Bach revised and rummaged through the St.John Passion throughout his life, so there can be no claim to a standard or definitive version (this is not the case with the St. Matthew Passion).
This Passion is great in its own right. If the St.Matthew Passion did not exist, this work could almost take its place. Right from the opening bars it will be evident that great music is on its way, and it doesn't let up throughout the entire piece.
Structurally, the work is almost identical to the ... Read More
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- Bach is still rich, but he loses a lot here
