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

Once anyone takes part in music making music [either as a player or singer] they have a hugely deepened understand of the music and also of different performances, recorded or live.

Those who claim such deepened comprehension are usually dismissed as "elitists" or some such ...

Having played in Orchestra 1 on the Double bass, I would say that the performance that most satisfies me is the one on DHM by Gustav Leonhardt, which manages the trick of wonderfully HIP orchestra playing, combined with the long breathed seriousness and spiritual address [from Leonhardt], and I am able to accept that not every soloist is possibly the favourite voice for the part for some people.

It works on a deeper level than merely the soloists, who are in the main admirable in any event. The choir is also superb ...

ATB from George

Bert,

I couldn't agree with you more and am very glad to read your thoughts on this as another likeminded individual.  Furthermore, that you were part of a production is just absolutely wonderful to hear.  You have my deepest respect.  

What you have conveyed about being involved in music and the different outcomes with the experience is so true.  I can only speak for myself but I know that as an active musician (pianist) since childhood, there is no such thing as a casual relationship to music.  With great music, I have no defence anymore against the rush of thoughts and emotions it causes within me.  I do not think I am even there yet but for more than two weeks my mind has been racing with so many thoughts about this work as I try to put it together in my mind.  Day and night it seems I have some portion of this going through my head.  It is not automatic to come to terms with this work and you have to pay some price with your own commitment to it.  You slowly build and build until eventually the floodgates open and you start to see what a massive work of art this is full of untold beauty and profoundness.

I agree that the tone of the work set by the conductor is essential.  The faster many modern conductors push this my turn off to the result rises exponentially.  I mean there is so much symbolism to take in and the interplay between the voices (human either singular or en masse) and the instrumentation and rhythms is phenomenal.  Over all though, for me, there has to be a sense that this work is bigger than life.  The tone is one of reverence but this is mixed with an ominous tone filled with determination, grief, mourning, love and respect.  The foreshadowing in the score is also wonderful with its general downward sense leading to a final sense of acceptance.  When a theme is repeated in a higher or lower register and with a different instrumentation it further drives the point home.

I have been under the weather this week and so everything is a struggle but after very long hard days at work plus dad duties I still have managed to listen to Richter again last night and listened many times tonight to your highlighted points.  All are just awesome examples to consider (1, 3, 24, 30, 41, 46, 55, 73) and in my state I am having difficulty just picking single examples to add as I would be here all night and I only have a few hours left for sleep.  By the way, I don't believe Richter is playing organ on this recording.  The program lists two organists:  Ekkehard Tietze and Hedwig Bilgram.

For example, the duet (Soprano, Contralto) with chorus (33): 

a) So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen. / -Laßt ihn, haltet, bindet nicht!
b) Sind Blitze, sind Donner in Wolken verschwunden?

I could discuss this portion alone until the end of time.  (never mind Erbarme rich, mien Gott and the rest). Yes, listen in near darkness with headphones and be prepared to be taken away in exultation.  Not the same performance as the recording but just one example of one of the more dramatic sections.  If Bach had written only this one 5 minute piece alone I would consider him a genius.  Just listen to the harmony and counterpoint as the instrumentation, voices and choir intertwine this struggle, tension, and pain going on.  Within 5 minutes Bach turns beauty into such energy and 

I have only seen the MP once live (at the Concertgebouw) many years ago at Easter but was to young to understand the work yet.  Today, I could not imagine going to a live performance (unless I was the only one in the audience and it was dark.  It is just too emotional for me now.  I cannot understand how the performer can actually compose themselves to make it through unaffected.

27a. Arie SA (Chor I) und Chor II
So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen.
  -Laßt ihn, haltet, bindet nicht! -
Mond und Licht
Ist vor Schmerzen untergangen,
Weil mein Jesus ist gefangen.
Sie führen ihn, er ist gebunden.

27b.   - Sind Blitze, sind Donner in Wolken 
  verschwunden?
  Eröffne den feurigen Abgrund, o Hölle,
  Zertrümmre, verderbe, verschlinge, zerschelle
  Mit plötzlicher Wut
  Den falschen Verräter, das mördrische Blut!

27a. Aria SA (Chorus I) and Chorus I & II
Thus my Jesus is now captured.
  - Leave Him, stop, don't bind Him! - 
Moon and light
for sorrow have set,
since my Jesus is captured.
They take Him away, He is bound. -

27b.  - Are lightning and thunder 
  extinguished in the clouds?
  Open the fiery abyss, o Hell,
  crush, destroy, devour, smash
  with sudden rage
  the false betrayer, the murderous blood! -

 I have added the words just in case you wonder about the contrast of the two emotions here.  The fury and the rage is thunder and lightening.  Who said Bach did not draw pictures in music?  And note how he builds the tension.

Who can sleep now anyway.....

Prior to this clip:  Erbarm es, Gott!

Then: Können Tränen meiner Wangen

Erbarme dich, mein Gott

One of the most perfect creations of music making I would suggest.  I prefer contraltos.  If you can listen to this music and not be affected, then you are not human or have such a thick shell around you to keep this out.

Final recitative:  Nun ist der Herr zur Ruh gebracht.

Final chorus:      Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder

This is the ending of Klemperer's 1962 recording (lasting 3 hours 44 minutes)

Florestan,

Do not worry and just go & enjoy a live performance of the MP! You will not be the only person who will shed some tears at certain moments. We are human after all.

The clips you share are from Richter's 1971 version, and it's interesting to see the looks and fashion in southern Germany 44 years ago . On a lighter note: what a beauty was soprano Helen Donath!

George,

Indeed, Gustav Leonhardt's version is very spiritual. A review praised Leonhardt's version for its intimate and introverted character. That doesn't mean that it lacks drama and passion. On the contrary, one of the striking features is the strong emotional impact which Leonhardt creates by stressing the importance of the text and putting it into the centre of attention.

In a Dutch biography of Leonhardt it was concluded that Leonhardt had a mindset from the eighteenth century (very much like the great Bach himself): People are ignorant, mortal beings which only come to wisdom once they are passing away....

One of the boy sopranos on Leonhardt's version is a bit immature for these complex aria's, but that shall be forgiven. Indeed the playing of the La Petite Bande orchestra is superb. For instance in (35) O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde Groß and in basso aria (66) Komm, süßes Kreuz.

Talking about La Petite Bande: after listening to 8 Johannes Passions I prefer Sigiswald Kuijken's version with La Petite Bande from 1987: Very beautiful orchestra and a very impressive Christoph Prégardien. Leonhardt must have heard this record before he asked Sigiswald to play on his MP recording in 1989

Dear Bert,

I have four recordings of the Matthew, being Reginald Jacques [1947/8 on Decca], Klemperer [EMI], Leonhard [DHM], and Stephen Cleopbery [on the Complete Bach Edition from Brilliant Classics]. I find the Cleobury is among these my least favourite, but still worthy. Better in technical senses than Klemperer, but not closer to the meaning of the words, but never feeling too slow, while occasionally feeling superficial. Leonhard has the measure of this music and drama, so much so that I do not quibble over details at all. 

Of the Saint John, I can say that it a piece that I played in many times. I knew the score off by heart [the whole score in the same way that you would expect from a professional conductor] before my first ever time [which also was the first time I played as the only - i.e. solo - double bass, so no chance to fudge anything!], and over the years had several recordings: The old Decca set from the late 1950s with the Philomusica of London if I remember right [on LPs], Benjamin Britten's mid-60s recording on Decca CDs, John Elliot Gardiner's DG recording on CD and most recently the Stephen Cleobury on Brilliant CD. Only the Cleobury is still with me as knowing the music so intimately, each earlier recording seemed to have aspects that I genuinely found difficult to accept. Cleobury does avoid this, but I was alway curious about the "La Petite Bande" DHM recording. What put me off at the time was that in early CD days it was very expensive, and I already had Britten on CD. The Saint John is more overtly dramatic, and in some moments is actually almost operatic [in the Handelian sense] and so takes more easily to Cleobury's less reverential approach ... IMHO, of course. 

Of course so was the Leonhard Matthew recording [very expensive], but apart from Klemperer on four long LPs I did not have a CD recording and had listened to the Leonhardt on Radio Three, and knew it was right for my understanding of the music, so I bit the bullet and paid up!

Thanks for pointing me at the DHM John recording again after all these years.

ATB from George

Dear Bert,

A funny tale of one performance of the Saint John that I was in under Sir Richard Minors, is that he had the somewhat strange idea that the double bass should be laid off completely in the continuo, even though it is quite essential in a large Church acoustic. I knew the continuo cellist very well - a very nice lady player - and we agreed that in the rehearsals that I would indeed keep out. But she begged me to play in the performance, which I did, throughout in both tutti and continuo! With the obvious requirement for terraced dynamic ...

After the performance the conductor came up to me and asked if I had played in the continuo, as Rachel's cello seemed so much better than at rehearsals! I said that I had, and he smiled and thought that I was right to have done so! Soto voce is very hard to do and keep in tune, but with gut strings there is a fizz on the string-tone right at the ear, but inaudible from six feet. That way you can hear what you are doing even when playing pianissimo. 

The conductor felt that the line ran too high for the double bass to play well in tune, but in reality it only goes up to the G one octave above the open top G string. This note is exceptionally easy to find as it a harmonic, and a strong one, so plenty of power to fine down to a pianissimo in the quiet blanche of the continuo ... 

It always amazes me that conductors are so ignorant of the technical possibilities and difficulties of the instruments of the orchestra!

ATB from George

Hi George,

Wonderful to hear that you are actually a musician having played the St John's passion multiple times.Great anecdote. You will have observed that each conductor has his/her views and peculiarities. They all have a fine ear, but that ear is quite different from that of other conductors! It's so obvious when you start comparing versions.

Comparing recording become so easy, especially with Spotify and of course ripped music played via JRiver software. I enjoy it a lot, although sometimes it drives me nuts. 

I listened to the following St John's Passions:

Sigiswald Kuijken is really worth a listen.

Second on my list are Herreweghe 2001 and Gardiner 2003. Herreweghe's version is the 1725 version with some unknown aria's. The sounds is beautiful and intimate. Listen to the very beatiful bass-soprano interaction in "Himmel reiße, Welt erbebe", an aria which I had not heard before. Strongly recommended.

Gardiner has a really 'live' acoustic atmosphere. The large choir is impressive, especially the bass vocals and the bass/celli in "Ach großer König, groß zu allen Zeiten". Mark Padmore is a great evangelist, although he sounds a bit like having a stuffy nose. His almost flawless German pronounciation is admirable.

George,

as you play bass yourself: do you like chamber music from piano/string quartets/trio's? There are so many piano and string quartet/trio recordings available on Spotify. They all play the beautiful nineteenth century chamber music from Schubert, Beethoven, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and so on. I wonder if you could recommend any quartet or trio which you admire.

Florestan,

do you have any favourite piano/string quartets/trio's?

Best regards, Bert

Hi Bert,

We should take this elsewhere but briefly I could say that chamber music is one of my greatest loves and could not in a brief sentence list my favourite works.  For expediency, I would just say the entire repertoire.  Certainly I have some dear favourites but I think I am more attracted to the idea of a small group of musicians making music together.  It is intense and very intimate.  Certainly chamber music shares the same elements of a good marriage (the more you put in the more you get out) but also can be hell with the wrong people.  So there are good fits and bad ones.  

Not that I don't like large ensembles.  Indeed, St. Matthew Passion for example has consumed me for weeks now.  It is the practicality of it though in that I need to be an active participant.  It isn't the same standing on the sidelines and watching.  It is hard enough to find one or two musical partners who have the same ideals and goals and so I consider myself very fortunate.  

I could talk all day on string quartets, trios, sextets etc. or otherwise.  Equally I could talk of my love of any string combination with a piano.  As a pianist, for about a decade I worked through a small portion of the core Piano Trio repertoire and now for nearly 9 years I have been focused on the core music for piano and cello.  Tonight in fact I have a rehearsal for the Brahms F major cello sonata.  

Sadly, I have a sense that my partnership with this cellist is coming to an end as she is talking about moving away in the next year or two.  Who knows, maybe we'll figure out some sort of distance relationship?

I love solo piano music like nothing else as well but I can say without reservation that some of my greatest musical experiences come from my partnerships with cellists and violinist in working through this music.  It isn't everyday but one lives for those rare occasions where the magic happens and everyone experiences some distant palpable emotion in a certain section at the same time.  Everyone knows it then as when you finish playing there is silence.  One doesn't know what to say as everyone is just trying to hold themselves together.  These kinds of musical experiences are seared in ones memory for life.   

My dream would to be able to tackle piano quartets / quintets etc. in the future but I need to start dating some string quartets first.  Lack of time though is the greatest impediment currently.  When I finally have the time then age / health will be the final nails in the coffin. 

Regards,

Doug

Still busy studying and adding more Matthäus Passion (and Johannes-Passion etc.!)

First recordings of the works from Ton Koopman:

Anyone have any thoughts on the one voice per part (OVPP) versions versus choir ?  I have been listening to Kuijken Johannes-Passion for the past two days and at first I was a little bewildered and now after a second listen am finding it to be very interesting as an alternative.

One instrument or voice to a part performances are fascinating. They often clear up balance problems, but rarely convey the thrust of the music in my experience. Rather like alcohol free beer, they don't quite fill the bill.

But as ever they add to comprehension and so should not be dismissed out of hand. They are an aid in our quest for the music as intended ...

ATB from George

Doug, agree, generally takes a turn of the knob in the mind, not unlike hearing a fortepiano in Mozart for the first time. I wouldn't be without the Ricercar Consort's (one voice to a part) St John Passion.

EJ