Peter Harvey reviews
Telemann: Seliges Erwägen
Anna Lucia Richter, Hanna Zumsande, Julienne Mbodjé, Colin Balzer, Michael Feyfar, Peter Harvey, Henk Neven; Freiburg Baroque Orchestra/Gottfried von der Goltz (Aparté)
Harvey conducts Gibbons
When composer Thomas Morley urged performers to draw listeners ‘in chains of gold’, he might well have been reviewing this recording. Under the direction of Peter Harvey, the synergy of the Magdalena Consort, Fretwork and His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts, unveils Orlando Gibbons’s Consort Anthems and In Nomines in all their pious glory and passionate devotion.
Bach: St Matthew Passion
Over two decades ago, Joshua Rifkin put theory into practice by recording Bach’s B minor Mass with just one singer to each part. Scholarly arguments over such economical forces have raged ever since, sometimes vitriolically, but McCreesh is the first to hazard them in the St Matthew Passion. The solo narrative is unaffected. Mark Padmore (Evangelist) describes events vividly, respecting Bach’s underlying recitative pulse but varying the dramatic pace freely, from perfunctory description of simple events to high drama – Peter’s weeping, Judas’s suicide.