Passion well spent...

I have spent a good deal of my life analysing great literature, and exhorting adolescent boys to analyse great literature, while, at the same time, trying to convince them and myself that such analysis will lead to greater knowledge (undeniable) and greater love (a trickier proposition). Robert Frost famously asserted ‘a poem should not mean, but be.’ On one level of course he is absolutely right, but exams are not passed through mere assertion, however inspired, and this is the circle I have been trying to square for the last sixty years.

However, when it comes to music, I have no academic credentials whatsoever, so feel no compunction in saying that, for reasons I can’t articulate, Bach’s ‘St Matthew Passion’ is a work of towering, divinely inspired genius that stirs the deepest of my emotions and converts me, for the time I am listening to it, into a fervent believer.

The performance by Arcangelo at The Barbican Centre on Ash Wednesday, 1^st April was of such exceptional quality that my already profound devotion for this work was further heightened.

The main glories of this performance were the contributions of choir and orchestra, or more accurately, choirs and orchestras, as double forces are used to heighten drama and pathos. The choirs boasted some of the finest singers on the London choral scene and the orchestras were packed with virtuosos; their combined effect was often moving beyond words.

The soloists presented a strong team. Evangelist Nick Pritchard sang from memory. This was a performance of the highest eloquence and sensitivity, sweet toned and totally committed. Only in the description of the cataclysm at the moment of Jesus’ death (Und siehe da, der Vorhang in Tempel zerriss in zwei stuck – And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain) did he fall short of ideal – this requires a more dramatic voice. Otherwise Pritchard was exemplary. I was pleased that, though singing from memory, he held the score by his side. This showed class. American bass Alex Rosen sang Jesus, and it was excellent to have this role sung by a bass rather than a baritone. Lower reaches of the part, which can disappear, here rolled out sonorously. Rosen has a very fine instrument, but his top can become rather raw, his rasping cry of ‘Eli, Eli, lama asabthani?’ ‘My God, my God, why have you for forsaken me?’ being a case in point. This remained a noble assumption. I first heard Carolyn Sampson when she was a young soprano singing Semele at English National Opera, now something of a veteran, she sang her soprano music with attractive tone and secure style. Hugh Cutting is very much the golden boy among younger counter tenors and his singing was often ravishingly beautiful, ‘Erbarmer dich’, ‘Have mercy’ was the high point it should be. As yet, Cutting lacks the rich lower sonorities of the likes of James Bowman and Andreas Scholl, but he is still young. Tenor Hugo Hymas displayed an attractive sinewy tone; his singing was a model of secure baroque taste. Baritone Thomas Bauer was the oldest of the singers and the only German. Some of the writing lay rather low for him but his well projected, pithy and dramatic enunciation of the text was a constant pleasure. ‘Gebt mir meinen Jesum wieder! Give me back my Jesus! seemed intensely personal. Smaller roles were well taken by members of the choirs, with particularly vivid contributions from Hugo Herman-Wilson as Judas, Patrick Keefe as Pilate, and Eleanor Garside as Pilate’s wife. Throughout, the undemonstrative, but profoundly influential direction of Arcangelo’s founder Jonathan Cohen allowed the glories of this miraculous work to shine forth.

Richard Wigmore in his erudite programme notes relates the story of an ‘aged widow’s’ reaction to the first performance of the Matthew Passion: ‘God save us…it’s just as if one were at an opera!’ This raises the interesting question of how this music is now perceived and received. Certainly the prolonged cheering and the standing ovation that greeted the end of the performance at the Barbican was behaviour typical of the opera house, but the profound sense of contemplation I felt amongst my fellow audience members during the performance had more of religion about it than many church services I have attended. Having said that, the same is often true of ‘Parsifal’. In the final analysis the Matthew Passion, to echo Robert Frost, just ‘is’. And thank God for that…

Nick Pritchard: Evangelist, Alex Rosen: Jesus, Hugo Herman-Wilson: Judas, Jonathan Cohen: conductor