Recorded in All Saints Church, Tooting, London, England.
1st recording of Johannes-Passion BWV 245 by J.E. Gardiner. Buy this album at:Amazon.com | Amazon.com [Highlights]
John Eliot Gardiner - General Discussion - St. John Passion
Alexander Vassiliadis
wrote (March 24, 2003):
I heard a concert with Sir J. E. Gardiner performing the St. John Passion in the Kaiserdom at Köigslutter - Germany. Generally it was a very emotional and moving performance that showed all the qualities of the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists. One can really see that all the singers and players - and also John Eliot Gardiner are more familiarwith Bach since their Bach Cantata Pilgrimage. It's quite obvious that Gardiner knows the piece extremely well. In the concert he showed this by a much more free performance compared to his CD recording. For example he let choir sing the 2nd stanza of "Wer hat dich so geschlagen" a cappella and it became one of the highlights of the concert. THEY SANG LIKE ANGELS!!!!!
Surprising were some very slow tempi.
In the opening chorus I missed that inexorable and pressing rhythm in the bass line. In this piece also the coloraturas of the sopranos got sometimes out of control. Furthermore the sound the sound of the sopranos was very unbalanced. In the middle part the section after bar 69 ("verherrlicht...") began much too explosive and had thus an effect of forced and even martial sound.
The turba - choruses were all brilliant and dazzled by an immensely clear diction and rthythmical energy. Also the chorus inserts in "Eilt..." showed the perfect intonation of the Monteverdi Choir. When Gardiner slowed down the tempo more and more in the final chorus everyone knew that he had spiritualized what he is said in the text.
Among the soloists the best was Peter Harvey directly followed by Bernarda Fink (her "Es ist vollbracht" was heartbreaking) and Katherine Fuge. The second soprano (Joanne Lunn) sang "Ich folge dir gleichfalls" with a very thin and weak voice. The voice didn't have any warmth and moreover Joanne Lunn weas much in trouble to reach her top notes and to sing chromatic lines. I heard her in 2000 during the BCP but I don't think that her voice developed since that time. The concerts there were in my opinion even better. I think that the concert would have been even better, if Katherine Fuge would have sung both arias. A singer, who is good for chorus singing is not automatically also good for singing solo pieces.
But these were the only flaws in an otherwise more than great performance.
Neil Halliday wrote (March 25, 2003):
Alexander Vassiliadis wrote of the opening chorus of Gardiner's SJP:
"In the opening chorus I missed that inexorable and pressing rhythm in the bass line."
Was this due to too fast (or too slow) a tempo, or lack of attention to the projection of (the differentiation between) the bass (violone) quarter note figure and the repeated eighth-note figure in the cello/bassoon(s)?
You remarked that Gardiner chose some slow tempos. It will be strange, indeed, to hear that Gardiner has started taking things too slowly; in my experience (admittedly limited with Gardiner), he has been one of the speed merchants who have offended my own taste for more moderate tempi in baroque choral works.
Alexander Vassiliadis wrote (March 24, 2003):
[To Neil Halliday] I think it wasn't just a result of the slow tempo.
Gardiner had to fight against very bad acoustics (the church is really huge) and so he in this case had to choose a very slow tempo (although a friend, who heard the SJP in Eisenach a day later told me he also played it very slow there). The second problem did you mention already. You could not hear any differentiation between the bas and cello /bassoon and the third aspect was that he (I don't no for which reason) did not play the piece with any sort of drive forwards. It might be that it is his way of approach to it.
I don´t want gto say that I generally am for very fast tempi as for example Reinhard Goebel plays, but I think that especially Gardiner who always wants and wanted to show the dance rhythm and the rhythmical strength and energy that is in Bach's music should see such things.
