I meant to review this at Easter, but time slipped by and now Christmas approaches — so perhaps you might be on the hunt for some nice religious music for a different Christian festival.
Classical reviews tend to compare new recordings in minute and technical detail (“The acoustics of the 1963 recording by von Ripplesnort edge it for me because he transposed the secondary harmonics to C major in the lower Gruber sine wave sequence”), but I don’t know any of that. Suffice to say, Bach’s “St John Passion” remains one of the most dramatic works in the sacred choral repertoire — and this sounds like a good recording. The first performance took place in April 1724, and this was issued (some time ago) to celebrate that 300th anniversary.
All I can say is it sounds really good, as if you are in the church (Bendorf-Sayn Abbey). The label MDG says this is because of the three-dimensional sound on Super Audio CD and MDG’s 2+2+2 audiophile recording (see what I mean?). Really good.
Shout out to Ruth Halton (soprano), Bogna Bartosz (alto), Markus Brutscher (tenor), Thomas Laske (baritone), Tom Sol (bass), Kölner Kammerchor, Collegium Cartusianum, and Peter Neumann (conductor).
This is out on MDG Preziosa, MDG 102 2351-6 (two discs).
