Dietrich Henschel reviews
Bach: St Matthew Passion
A full decade has elapsed since John Eliot Gardiner's award-winning recording for Archiv set a new standard for interpreting the St Matthew Passion. Although a 'historically aware' account, it was (with hindsight) sufficiently expressive and dramatically engaged to win the affections of those suckled on Furtwängler, Klemperer, or Karajan: even they would dissent from the appalled old noblewoman at an early performance who likened the work to ‘an Opera Comedy’.
Bach: St Matthew Passion
It is just over 30 years since Nikolaus Harnoncourt made his first recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. I can remember listening with astonishment and joy to the lively dance-like character of the opening chorus, a far cry from any tempo I had grown up with. Now Harnoncourt takes it more briskly, knocking almost three-quarters of a minute off the earlier recording – and it evinced no astonishment at all, such has been the evolution in Baroque music performance over the past quarter-century and more.