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Johannes-Passion - J.S. Bach (2007)

Artists:Kurt Equiluz, Robert Holl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Thomas Moser, Anton Scharinger....

Conductor: Nikolaus Harnoncourt | Direction: Humphrey Burton | Recording Date: 1985 | Place of recording: Graz's Gothic Baroque Cathedral

This brilliant recording though made in 1985 is still vibrant and alive today. This is a tribute to the conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He was then and is still today the absolute master of playing works of the Baroque period on period instruments and being musicologically correct for that period and the composer. Many such attempts at "period correct" music playing that I've heard have been stiff, boring and lifeless. Not so with Harnoncourt. His recordings are always exciting and spell binding. This is certainly true of the Johanes Passion.

This is the earlier of the two surviving Passions that Bach wrote. He had just been appointed Kantor of the St. Thomas church in Leipzig and was at the height of his choral creative powers. Whereas the later St. Matthew Passion is deeply devotional, contemplative and reassuring, the St. John is raw, aggressive and hugely dramatic; as close to Opera as Bach would ever obtain. From the opening chorus with it's mesmerizing dissonance in "Herr, Herr, unser Herrscher"(an E against an E flat), the rush of the drama seizes you and it carries you till the end of the work. The power of the music is in scene painting and this occurs throughout the entire piece. As example when Peter has denied Christ for the third time he goes to the garden to weep and when the veil of the temple is rent (both additions from the Matthew gospel) to the brutal suffering of Jesus on the cross with the plaintive aria "Ach, mein Sinn" or the painful aria "Erwage wie sein blutgefarbter Rucken" with the desperate cries of the chorus "Wohin?, Wohin?" This is high drama and as theatrical as it gets.

The musicians involved are all splendid in their rolls. I can't imagine a better Evangelist than Kurt Equiluz and the Jesus of Robert Moll is a pillar of strength. Though he does not have much music to sing here, the tenor solo Thomas Moser does very well and we'll hear him in many later opera performances. For those interested in musicology, the excellent use of period instruments was very informative and a great pleasure to hear. We have an aria accompanied by a pair of Viols with six strings and a C curve on the body of the instrument rather than the F curve of the Violin family with their four strings. In another aria we have a higly curved, eerie sounding Shawm of the older Oboe family accompanying along with wooden flutes and oboes. They all sounded "just left" in the places where they were used. A truly great experience.

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