Over the last little while, I seem to have come across a few different references to Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion. So I want to get a copy to listen.

Here’s my question: who can tell me what is a good recording to grab?

Little c

Matt can!!

:D

Han

LOL

Now you’ve gone and done is Han ;)

music help

Hi Chris,
Me too! Each year I treat myself to a special music purchase and 2004 is Matthew’s Passion.

I don’t know a good recording so I would be VERY interested to know which of the many productions you end up purchasing.

If friends can’t help then this is what I suggest: visit a music store which specialises in classical music and make your enquiry THERE. Don’t go to stores like SANITY or Fish. They are more pop/hip hop/rock orientated. People who own or work in classical music stores have a passion (pun intended) for such music and can be very helpful.

I’m waiting to visit my mum in Sydney before I buy St Matthew’s Passion. In the meantime I’ll be asking around for a good recording. If any thing comes of my enquiries, before my visit, I’ll post the info here.

All the best in you hunt

cheers
Angela

music help

The problem with any of Bach’s Passion works is that the good recordings are quite expensive. Here are a couple of suggestions, given to me by Graham Abbott from ABC Classic FM’s “Keys to Music” program.

On the French Harmonia Mundi label, a recent recording, conducted by Herreweghe.  The trick with this is he recorded it twice, but the first recording has one soloist who lets the whole thing down, so make sure you get the 2nd recording which is only a couple of years old.  With this you get a CD Rom that has a documentary about the Passion music tradition, and some other background information that is interesting.

Less expensive, but also not quite as good, is a recent recording on Teldec. The conductor is Nicholas Harnoncourt. (Again, he’s done a couple, so get the latest one not the old one he did back in the 1960’s or 70’s.) This also comes with a couple of discs. One of these discs compresses the music a bit, but in your PC shows the score using Bach’s original manuscript.

Hope these suggestions help - though they are pricey, Bach’s Passions are works of wonderful solemnity and inspiration, so well worth the effort.

P.S. Graham’s program tomorrow morning at 9 am is on the Te Deum. It’s not sung often in church these days, but as the notes for Keys to Music put it:  “The great Ambrosian hymn has been set by composers for centuries, resulting in some of the most glorious church music ever conceived. This program explores settings of the Te Deum with works by Lully, Purcell, Haydn, Berlioz, Verdi and Britten.”

Might be worth a listen if you’re interested in this sort of music.

As the Te Deum says, we praise you O God, we acknowledge you to be the Lord; all creation worships you, the Father everlasting!  Amen to that.

Warren, Mainstream thanks!

That’s all very helpful. Now is there a shop like these in Albury ...?

Hi Chris,

Although the Eliot-Gardiner is superb, for my money Harnoncourt has the edge. When choosing between two excellent recordings, these things end up very personal.

The best news with Harnoncourt, if you have a DVD player, is that you can buy the complete Passion on one DVD for about $32 (where on CD it is spread out across three CDs and priced accordingly - about $70-80 as I recall). It can be played on either a DVD audio player as multi-channel surround sound or stereo, or on DVD video players in Dolby Digital 5.1. Aside from Oliver Widmer (who I find a bit woolly-voiced) all the soloists are pretty much ideal, and the Arnold Schoenberg and Vienna Boys’ choirs are about as good as choral singing gets.

Another great alternative or complementary recording is the recent release under Paul McCreesh (about $50), which uses the soloists as the choirs (one-voice-per-part), so the choral parts have a special transparency (whatever the likelihood of the theory that it was originally performed that way). And McCreesh has the wonderful Magdalena Kozena.

However, the Eliot-Gardiner (I think it’s on Archiv, which is Deutche Grammophone’s early music label?) is now available in a 10-CD box set with the St John’s Passion, the B Minor Mass, and something else as well (I’m a bit vague on the contents). And the whole lot is only $100, something of a bargain. So if you don’t have a DVD player, and you’d like excellent recordings of all the major Bach choral works, that would probably be better use of your money than getting the Harnoncourt CDs.

In Albury? Hmm. If you go to your local stores, they might be able to order it in for you. And although Angela is right to say that Fish stores are not good for advice, they may well be able to help you with ordering - in Sydney they have two “Fish Fine Music” stores which have a good range.

Cheers
Matt

[quote author="Chris Little"]That’s all very helpful. Now is there a shop like these in Albury ...?

You might be able to find them on the internet. For example, BuyWell deal primarily in classical music and is Australian.

Done.

Gardiner (set of discs). Buywell. All information AMS-sourced.

Thanks again to all: I’m better educated even before the music arrives.

While you are waiting for them to arrive, Chris, you can listen to a decent version of the first half of the St Matthew Passion by going to:

Scroll down to the link to the current “For the God Who Sings” program. Last Sunday night this included a Sir David Willcocks version in English. As well, you can listen to Stainer’s “Crucifixion”, which is another marvellous musical version of the story from Gethsemane onwards. (Similar in structure to the Bach, in that it mixes narrative from the gospel accounts with songs/hymns to elaborate on the theology of what is going on.)

Unfortunately, the program presenter had problems with her technology early in the Bach and you have to be patient while she changes the CD player she was using!

This thread started almost a year ago with a question about the St Matthew Passion by JS Bach.

For those who are interested, ABC Classic FM’s “Keys to Music” program will have a 3 part series on this work, commencing on Saturday morning March 12th at 9 am. (If you miss the show you can listen on-line for several weeks afterwards, at .

As with his 3-parter on Messiah, the show’s presenter, Graham Abbott, will bring not only his excellent music teaching skills to bear, but also his thorough understanding of the theology, text and message of the work that he describes as “one of the towering masterworks of western civilisation”.

For anyone interested in St Matthew Passion and who has foxtel or austar, Ovation channel is showing a performance of this marvellous work, RIGHT NOW.

Sorry, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get this message out to people!!

is there a Passion in English?

Even if its Bach translated (as was once common in opera) if so is one available in the record albums.