It's Easter morning as this review is being written, and as the Music Director of a large metropolitan Portland church, I'll
soon be off to conduct a large contingent of singers and musicians in what will hopefully be an uplifting part of several
services which begin after sunrise and continue until early afternoon.
But both Good Friday and Easter Eve (is there such a thing?) for me was spent reveling in one of the musical glories of
Eastertide, Johann
Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion, one of either a quartet or quintet of similar works the master composed
during his lifetime, but one of only two which have survived. Bach's compositional life was of course built largely around
his
religious life and professional duties, but there's something especially magnificent about his two surviving Passions
(a third has been reconstructed). St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion couldn't be more different,
however, with John's intimacy contrasting with Matthew's grandiosity and perhaps larger overall scale and
ambitions.
With music this timeless, it really doesn't matter if you choose to listen on Good Friday, Easter or in fact in the middle of fall
or winter. This is
music that speaks directly to the soul, and to Man's eternal quest to find meaning in life. This performance makes beautiful
use of the double
choirs and orchestras which is one of this Passion's defining features. Ivan Fischer, who raised some eyebrows
with some singalong Passions doesn't opt for that approach here (probably thankfully), instead utilizing an expert
array of soloists, including a brilliantly fluid Mark Padmore as the Evangelist. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in
collaboration with both the Netherlands Radio Choir and National Children's Choir offer some incredibly sumptuous
sonorities.
Matthäus-Passion is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of ArtHaus Musik with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1.
Virtually everything about this visual presentation, from the insert booklet of the Blu-ray itself to the burnished interior of
the concert hall, is tinged with deep browns, offering a suitably somber setting for this moving work. A glut of cameras is
able to capture everything from a variety of angles, and close-ups reveal very nice fine detail. Some of the wide shots
suffer just slightly from softness, no doubt exacerbated by the angle and how the stage lighting is pointing toward the
cameras.
Matthäus-Passion features two lustrous audio options, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0 mix and an LPCM 2.0 stereo fold
down. The 5.0 mix offers really beautiful hall ambience as well as some smart separation of soloists and ensemble. Fidelity
is superb and dynamic range is quite wide, able to handle some of the hushed soli as well as the bombastic
tuttis featuring choirs and orchestra.
I frankly haven't had a chance to watch or listen to the other Blu-ray offering of this monumental score (Bach: St. Matthew Passion),
but I can't imagine it being any better than this one. Fischer conducts with solemnity and grace, and the soloists, choirs
and orchestra are simply superb throughout. Highly recommended.
Bach: Matthaus-Passion Blu-ray, News and Updates
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