Review by nickc March 24, 2005 (6 of 7 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
It's Good Friday here in Melbourne so what more appropriate task than to listen to and review this disc! BIS have set themselves the Augean task of selecting highlights from what is commonly considered (along with Beethoven's string quartets)by classical music lovers as the summit of Western Music - Bach's great Matthew Passion. The two other recordings I have (Harnoncourt/Teldec and Oberfrank/Naxos) take between 160 and 163 minutes for the complete work - firstly congratulations to BIS for fitting in 81.18 of music on one disc! I suppose there could be two ways of approaching releasing a highlights disc: firstly provide a sense of the story by including some recitative or secondly just extract all the arias and play them in order. BIS has gone the first route and there are pluses and minuses of course. By my count there are about 20-25 minutes of recitative sprinkled through the disc and a good sense of the unfolding narrative is achieved. Unfortunately that means we miss 7 of Bach's arias (if you are interested nos. 6, 13, 23, 35, 42, 57 and 65) - some of them some of Bach's greatest (though the greatest "Erbarme dich") is there. "Erbarme dich" brings me on to another point: Suzuki uses a counter-tenor for that aria and some of the others a soprano could take. His voice has an otherworldly quality that I like though others may feel differently. The very opening chorus is slower than I'm used to and almost shudders to halt at a few points but after that tempi are not controversial. How would I characterise this performance? I would characterise it as somewhat light and small-scale (though not in a pejorative sense). For me Harnoncourt is more earthy and human, but who is to say which approach is correct - like all great works no one single approach can ever hope to convey all that is in the music. The recording is generally excellent but at lower dynamic levels sometimes seems to recede a little bit. Voices sound fantastic though the choir is a little bit back from the rest. It is a good concert hall ambience but I much prefer the Channel Classics Christmas Oratorio recording.
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