Bach: St John Passion (Concert Review - The Daily Telegraph, 2013)

For many, the story of Christ’s arrest, trial and Crucifixion finds its perfect musical incarnation in Bach’s St Matthew Passion. The St John Passion, its unruly younger sibling, is less well-known and, on the face of it, less perfect. Whereas the calm alteration of chorus, aria and recitative of the Matthew Passion is never disturbed, in the John Passion it’s soon shoved aside by the sheer urgency of the drama. The trial scene presses on with the implacability of a Greek drama, the chorus baying for Christ’s blood, Pilate more and more hemmed into a corner.

One certainly felt for him in this performance from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Stephen Layton. Here everything took on a sharp and uncomfortable edge. Ian Bostridge as the narrating Evangelist was in such a fever that he often broke in before the previous chorus had died away. When he told the story of how Peter denied Jesus three times, his voice took on a strange distorted tone, as if he was unhinged by the horror of it all.

Any performance that goes close to the edge risks seeming overdone at times. Tenor Nicholas Mulroy certainly struggled with the implacable brisk tempo of the aria Ach mein Sinn (Ah, My Soul). But the final impression of this great performance wasn’t of the almost crazed intensity of the Trial scene, but the wisdom of the whole. Once the die was cast a huge calm seemed to descend on the work, a sense of “this is how it must be”. Not even the thrilling orchestral explosion at the Rending of the Temple Veil could disturb it.

At this point, certain singers came into their own. Counter-tenor Iestyn Davies found a beautiful radiant tone for the aria Es ist vollbracht (It Is Fulfilled). Julia Doyle’s pellucid simplicity was the ideal foil for Bostridge’s intensity. The most telling moment came at the end. It’s difficult to bring off as the piece appears to end twice, with two summatory choruses. The singers of the choir Polyphony gave the first a moving tentative quality, as if they were discovering their feelings in the act of uttering them. The second was the grand assertion of certainty we were all waiting for.

Reviewed by Ivan Hewitt 
The Daily Telegraph