At last a DVD of Bach’s St Matthew Passion to get excited about! Last month I lamented the shortcomings of the King’s College, Cambridge version, and in August praised Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s marvelous rendering of the same composer’s St John Passion. But a top-notch version on DVD of Bach’s sublime Good Friday music following the story as told by Matthew still proved elusive. Finally I’ve found one.
Karl Richter recorded it in 1971 but it was only released on DVD in 2006. Purists consider it a traditional (as opposed to an “authentic”) reading, meaning that it employs modern instruments and larger forces than Bach would have known. But such distinctions hardly matter when the overall effect is as heartfelt and persuasive as this.
Particularly interesting is that its virtues are almost all the opposite of Harnoncourt’s. The set is in a featureless white space (Harnoncourt filmed his in an ornate rococo church). The work requires two choruses, and Richter opts for men, women and boys (Harnoncourt employed only men and boys). Richter’s soloists stand in isolation on various levels, all painted white, while the orchestra, and often even the harpsichord, sounds sonorous in the extreme (Harnoncourt only used early 18th-century instruments, whether real ones or modern copies, and their softer sound was crucial to his reading).
The approach of the conductors themselves couldn’t be more different either. Harnoncourt threw himself into the music, mouthing the words and seething with a passionate commitment. Richter is completely different. He spends some time conducting and some playing the harpsichord, but in neither role does he display a flicker of emotion.
The same, however, certainly can’t be said of his singers. It’s hard to know where to start in distributing praise for these. When considering the soprano and contralto soloists, you have to remember that Bach gives the greater music to the contralto, so it’s Julia Hamari who inevitably leaves the more lasting impression. But soprano Helen Donath is winningly fine as well wherever the music gives her the chance.
When it comes to the men, there’s no problem in deciding precedence. Peter Schreier shines out — he’s absolutely stupendous as the Evangelist, in other words the linkman throughout the entire three-and-a-quarter hours (broken into two halves in Bach’s day by an hour-long sermon). Curiously he has identical virtues to Harnoncourt’s Evangelist, Kurt Equiluz — a wonderfully high-pitched tenor voice, immense precision and a total lack of affectation. A powerful effect is achieved in both products by having the Evangelist filmed head-on and in close-up throughout.
But bass Ernst Gerold Schramm as Jesus proves at least Schreier’s equal in his fewer moments in the spotlight — the dramatic problem is that, being seen as God, he can’t display variety. But there isn’t a weak link anywhere among the soloists, and with subtitles in English, French, Spanish and Chinese this pair of DVDs can be very highly recommended. It’s currently being discounted by some Taipei retailers to around NT$850.
If I still on balance prefer the St John Passion, at least as envisioned by Harnoncourt, it’s partly because of a personal preference for the dramatic over the contemplative. Also striking is its insight, despite being shorter, into people and situations, most notably into the character of Pilate — intelligent, honest, but finally a pragmatist. Both works, of course, have their strengths, and the St John has nothing so plaintive yet simple as Peter’s plea for forgiveness after denying Jesus three times. Maybe Bach thought it had to be especially moving as clearly God himself was moved because he allowed him to go on, despite everything, and found the Christian church.
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