Easter is coming - which recording of St. Matthew's Passion?

Harnoncourt / Concentus Musicus Wien on Teldec from 2001 is the one I have. Superb recording with lovely packaging and a full text in 3 languages.

I have four recordings of the Saint Matthew Passion. The 1947/8 Bach Choir and Orchestra conducted by Reginald Jacques with a superb English soloist line up including Ferrier. The 1963 EMI Klemperer/Philharmonia recording. Gustav Leonhard from and [publsied in1990 on DHM] and the most recent being the Stephen Cleobury recording contain in the Brilliant Classics Bach Edition.

The old Bach Choir [Decca, but reissued on Dutton Labs in a very beautiful transfer[ recording is in English and the performing text is the Elgar Atkins version, which is very fine indeed. Not anything but a slight amendment here and there to point the Enlish translation correctly. It is not a monumentally scaled performance as might be expected if you had never heard it.

Klemperer is the most controversial of the four, and also has been in print continually for fifty years as well. It has very much about it that is great music making though I personally struggle with the determinedly inflexible recitative approach. The chorus is probably the best on any of these. The recording is slightly odd, in that it is exaggerated stereo.

My favourite is the Leonhard set on DHM. Often [though crucially not at certain points] at similarly steady tempi to Klemperer, it could hardly be more stylistically correct for all that. Some have found that one of the male alto soloists has a voice of "difficult" timbre, though none would doubt his artistry for all that. Leonhard is definitely in charge and the conception is that of one of the greatest Bach performers of all time after a lifetime of experience. All in all a performance that everyone should try to listen to at least once. See link below:-

The Steven Cleobury set is quicker than any here, but never to my mind actually too fast. In many ways as is usually the case today, the recording presents a performance the likes of which you would never find live. It is so technically perfect that it is too good to be true! But it does carry conviction.

Four recordings! Do I need a fifth, and do I even need four?

Certainly none of these are leaving! And if another great one comes along, I would not be able to resist it of course!

Here is something special, and is the performance that resulted from the rehearsals and recording from Leonhard in 1989 on DHM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...index=25&list=WL

Note: I apologise for this, but this link does not start at the beginning. You will need to slide the arrow back to the start to have a proper commencement ...

ATB from George

I have the Nikolaus Harnoncourt on Teldec & the Dunedin Consort with John Butt; I could not say which I prefer.

The Dunedin version is a bit unusually in that it only uses one singer per part in the choruses; both versions however use female alto singers not male countertenors, which personally I prefer.

As for the recitatives, I must admit to skipping these sometimes.

In a really great performance, the recitatives project the story like JB Priestley doing a radio reading!

Crucial to the story and drama, and leaving them out [or cutting them down in a recording] is a real musical crime,

But they need to be carefully and flexibly handled.

But not listening to them is no less than listening to the Wagner Ring cycle with the fast forward in hand. A dreadful thing to do.

ATB from George

George, I did say ‘sometimes’.

The thing is I know the story, & some of the recitatives can be of limited musical interest to me, not so much in the Mathew Passion maybe which is more dramatic, but certainly in the cantatas.

You will no doubt also be horrified to know that I also skip the recitatives in Mozart operas & the spoken dialogue in Rossini’s Barber of Seville when listening at home.

Obviously I would not fast forward the Ring as there are positively no boring bits in that magnificent work.

Considering your post about cutting this or that, if only now and then, Rossini had it right about Wagner!

Marvellous five minutes, and boring three quarters of an hour ...

ATB from George

Morton,the Barber is not often heard with spoken dialogue...

I think the quote is;

Wagner has great moments but dull quarter hours – Rossini

Here are a few more for you.

• Every time I listen to Wagner, I get the urge to invade Poland - Woody Allen
• I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window, trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws. - Charles Baudelaire
• One simply can not judge Wagner's 'Lohengrin' after a first hearing. Pity I don't intend hearing it a second time. - Gioacchino Antonio Rossini
• The prelude to Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde' reminds one of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel. - Eduard Hanslick
• I grant you that the 'Nibelungen Ring' is funny, although mythical, but it is not a patch on the story of the coming into being of the Sydney Opera House. - Anna Russel
• The leitmotiv system of the 'Ring' strikes me as a sort of vast musical city directory. - Claude Debussy
• The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending. - Igor Stravinsky
• Wagner's aunt was so musical that when she came to a five-barred gate, she stopped and sang the spots on her veil. - Beachcomber

But you see the point...

I am less concerned with detail than the big picture ...

You really do make my point for me ...

ATB from George

Was Frank's first name Caesar?

ATB from George

No; Greig's uncle, the one who wrote Winterriese

Originally posted by ELS;

Morton,the Barber is not often heard with spoken dialogue...

Maybe, but it is on the recording I have & was although heavily cut, when I saw it at Longborough last summer.

I like the cartoon!

George, I have no idea what point I am making for you.

The point is that my quote from Rossini is not exactly accurate, but conveys the point that Wagner wrote some very dull music spiced with occasional aurally exciting crescendi.

Bach did not bother with crescendo and in his musical vision, the story can be told in full [and interesting] detail at each telling, and so a great performance can be devastating, if the story is comprehended. I think you and me certainly both know the story ...

ATB from George

No, Putin!!  

Originally posted by George J;

Wagner wrote some very dull music spiced with occasional aurally exciting crescendi.

Well, I certainly would not make that point!

Sorry, this is going a bit off topic.

You and me both, but then we have had much more exposure to Wagner than Rossini, who by the time he met Wagner (1860) confessed he had only heard the march from Tannhäuser and in 1867, the year he is credited with his famous quote, could only realistically have heard Lohengrin and Tannhäuser (very unlikely he had seen Tristan in München in '65). The first Ring opera wasn't to be heard until 1869.

Parsifal - Wagner's opera related to Good Friday - premiered in 1882. Which brings us back to that other great Good Friday work, Bach's Matthew Passion.

Also the St. John Passion, I only have one recording of this; John Eliot Gardiner and the The English Baroque Soloists.

I will be at a concert performance of Parsifal at Symphony Hall Birmingham on 17th May.

EJ, this is actually a very hard question and every night I had planned to reply before realizing that this is futile.  I too collect this work on a regular basis and have more already than I care to count.  I like the Veldhoven as well and plan on getting the Leonhardt on DHM that George referenced, the 1970 Harnoncourt and the John Butt this year.  I have been putting these off for too long.  You list Herreweghe I and Verlhoven I ?  I think both of mine are II's .  Not sure if the I's are still available?

The best?  In my books, there is no such thing.  If someone can narrow such a thing down to one or two I would say good for you but works like this and composers such as Bach provide endless treasures that on the surface appear to be simple perfection but going deeper will certainly yield an amazing enigma for which there is no end to it in return of pleasure, enjoyment, and study.  I don't believe one can simplify Bach to such a outcome?  I think Bach is much more complex than this and insulting actually if one is to think that he created these masterpieces and only intended one outcome.  That is like playing chess and prescribing only the same moves - over and over - forever.  This gets rather boring.

I listened to six different versions alone this week in thinking about this question and realize how varied the results are and this teaches one more about the music than only listening to one way time and time again.  Each version can teach us something more by looking at it completely from different angles.

So bottom line is that I really wanted to offer a more concise response but I have just become humbled and overwhelmed by the task.  In the end, my only suggestion is to keep collecting and growing with the work?  In general, I have many of the available versions of the last four decades or so and ultilmately plan on heading to earlier recordings such as 1930's to 1950's.

I'm going to keep thinking about this though and may be able to offer more specifics on various recordings and highlights for me, time permitting.

Regards,

Doug

I would say that you have hit the nail firmly on the heard with that!

Firstly any cast of soloists  large enough for the Saint Matthew Passion is never going to be all of equal quality, and what about boy trebles versus lady sopranos!

Male altos as opposed to female contraltos ...

Naturally such a variegated work as the Passion is also going to draw a wide variety of interpretative approaches. Large choir, smaller choir or solo voices for the choral parts. Each has its place.

All we can do is mention performances that we have each enjoyed!

Sometimes there will be a shared enjoyment and sometimes there will be cases of performances mentioned that spark a curiosity in others.

Certainly there is no definitive or best recording.

ATB from George