Sibylla Rubens reviews

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’.