JS Bach - St Matthew Passion

Stephen Cleobury, James Gilchrist (tenor), Matthew Rose (bass), Sophie Bevan (soprano), David Allsopp (countertenor), Mark le Brocq (tenor), William Gaunt (bass), Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Academy of Ancient Music

With much of the world now under lock-down, and public gatherings of any size impossible, Easter this year is all but cancelled. There will be no concerts in the run-up to Easter, and Holy Week services, if they take place at all, will be said by clergy behind closed doors. All of which lends particular poignancy to this year’s crop of seasonal classical releases. Holy Week and Easter works are likely to be listened to with special intensity. And the latest set from the King’s College Choir’s own label is doubly poignant, for it captures a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion made in April 2019 during Sir Stephen Cleobury’s last season as the College’s Director of Music: he retired the following September, and died two months later on St Cecilia’s Day, 22 November 2019.

This recording is a fitting tribute to Sir Stephen’s 37 years at the helm of one of the world’s great musical institutions, his last views on a work he had conducted countless times over the years. That experience shows in a deeply considered reading which, with orchestral playing provided by the Academy of Ancient Music, takes proper regard of period performance practice while being careful never to push things to extremes. The chorales, which form such an important part of the meditation on the unfolding narrative, are expertly paced, enunciation dazzlingly clear, and with no dawdling around at the pause signs that mark the ends of phrases. And how good it is to hear a choir of boys’ voices of such quality in this work! (Incredibly, it is now almost fifty years since the King’s College Choir, at the time under the direction of Sir David Willcocks, took part in Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s groundbreaking first recording of the St Matthew Passion in 1971.) In the many crowd scenes, and in the great choruses that frame Part 1 of the work as well as the heart-wrenching closing chorus, the Choir under Cleobury give a masterclass in how this music can be sung with a combination of clarity, involvement and a respect for the music’s long line, with the bright trebles sending a tingle down the listener’s spine. Happily, too, the girls and boys of the King’s College School Choir provide the ripieno chorale lines in the framing choruses of Part 1.

The soloists are a distinguished team, led by the clear-headed, benevolent Evangelist of James Gilchrist, and a Christus of exceptional authority and warmth in Matthew Rose: one of the most generous-toned exponents of the part, certainly in ‘period’ performances, since the great Karl Ridderbusch for Harnoncourt in 1971. There is just one quartet of soloists serving for both the Chorus 1 and Chorus 2 ariosos and arias, led by the radiant soprano of Sophie Bevan, a favourite visitor to King’s. Her performance of the Part 2 aria ‘Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben’ (arguably the emotional centre of gravity of the entire work) is unforgettable, with beautifully controlled dynamics and phrasing, yet delivering huge emotional impact, and winningly partnered by flautist Rachel Beckett and oboes da caccia Mark Baigent and Lars Henriksson. Other highlights include countertenor David Allsopp together with leader Bojan Čičić in a meltingly exquisite and ideally-paced account of ‘Erbarme dich’, and warm-toned bass William Gaunt in ‘Komm, süßes Kreuz’ (with Reiko Ichise on viola da gamba) and the glorious final aria ‘Mache dich, mein Herze, rein’, towards whose rich, low sonorities the whole piece seems to have been working as the body of Christ is lowered from the Cross and into the tomb.

Gaunt and Bevan also assume the parts of Pilate and Pilate’s wife, while other roles in the Passion narrative are taken by members of the choir. In the end, however, this is a performance that adds up to much more than the sum of its parts, one in which the work’s meditative qualities are emphasised over (but not to the exclusion of) the unfolding drama. There is heft where necessary (in the trial scenes of Part 2, for example), and a sense of forward drive too, but things are never rushed (nor should they be, given the Chapel’s fabled acoustic). Emotions are always given enough space and depth to unfurl. There are other performances that make more of the antiphonal division of choirs, or of individual moments in the drama. But this is an account that can speak powerfully and stylishly both to purists and traditionalists, and it will certainly appeal to the many admirers of the ‘King’s sound’ around the globe at this time. In it there seems to be the wisdom of a lifetime, conveyed by some of today’s finest performers, with thoughtful booklet notes by John Butt, no less, in a work that never ages.