Yarrah St. Johm

"The St. Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the greatest works in the history of music. Whenever I study this epochal composition, I always ask myself the question: How can a work of music, which is performed each year in thousands of performances, has been scientifically and artistically interpreted for decades, and worshiped for centuries, remain a new, contemporary, and at the same time universal and supreme idea?It can be achieved if that which is defined as established and comprehensive, and appears or is accepted as unshakeable, is set in motion without capping the connections to the work itself and its musical- historical, intellectual and theological foundations." says Hans-Christoph Rademann about one of the monumental sacred works of music history. In November 2020, Rademann and the Gaechinger Cantorey ensemble and chorus, together with an extraordinary group of soloists, set out to lend a new and fresh perspective to Bach's timeless masterpiece of raging choirs, intimate chorales, and emotionally charged arias, which, with its drama and pictorial quality, allows the listener to experience the well-known Passion story again and again as something completely new and unheard-of.

Suzuki presents the 1749 version of the St. John Passion, a work that underwent many changes since its first performance in 1724.

Kölner Kammerchor (Cologne Chamber Choir; = KKC) was formed by Peter Neumann in 1970, and since winning the ‘Gran Premio Città di Arezzo’ in 1982 has made a name for itself in performances at major festivals in Germany, Italy, Belgium (Flanders Festival), England (BBC Proms), France, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Recorded before Sir Stephen Cleobury’s untimely passing in November 2019, King’s College presents a new account of one of the greatest masterpieces in sacred music, Bach’s St Matthew Passion. For this recording Cleobury led the King’s Choir and the Academy of Ancient Music alongside some of the most outstanding British singers performing today, headed by one of the finest Evangelists of our time, James Gilchrist. The album is accompanied by a booklet with over 60 pages of texts and photographs, including a full translation by Michael Marissen and a specially-commissioned essay by John Butt.

On the present double album the ensemble ‘La Protezione della Musica’ directed by Jeroen Finke tackles the St Matthew Passion by Johann Cyriacus Kieling (1670–1727). This work is in a very emotional style, containing numerous short yet expressive arias, descriptive recitatives and virtuoso choruses. In its structure it anticipates the monumental, High Baroque settings of the St Matthew Passion by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach. After hearing this world première recording the listener will look forward to further projects from this ensemble.

Recorded before Sir Stephen Cleobury’s untimely passing in November 2019, King’s College presents a new account of one of the greatest masterpieces in sacred music, Bach’s St Matthew Passion. For this recording Cleobury led the King’s Choir and the Academy of Ancient Music alongside some of the most outstanding British singers performing today, headed by one of the finest Evangelists of our time, James Gilchrist. The album is accompanied by a booklet with over 60 pages of texts and photographs, including a full translation by Michael Marissen and a specially-commissioned essay by John Butt.

This will play on conventional CD players A landmark recording of J.S. Bach s St John Passion, sung in English the first for over forty-five years. With communicative zeal, beautiful articulation, and focused energy, the 100 voices of CEFC lend precision and power to the performance alongside the instruments of the Bach Camerata, one of the finest UK baroque orchestras, all under the inspired direction of David Temple. They are joined by a superb array of soloists including Robert Murray, Ashley Riches and Sophie Bevan.

The foundations of Marc Minkowski’s career lie in Baroque music, and he has enjoyed a long relationship with Warner Classics, but this Johannes-Passion (St John Passion) is his first Bach for the label. The work’s terse drama – here presented through just nine singers – is ideally suited to both his scrupulous musicianship and his keen sense of theatre. The French conductor describes Bach’s great masterpieces as “a journey you have to prepare for meticulously, over a long period of time… You come back from it like an explorer comes back from Everest or the Moon – transformed.”

Johann Sebastian Bachs St John Passion is, along with the St Matthew Passion, without doubt one of the most important works he ever composed. It established a new tradition for Good Friday vespers in Leipzig, and with sublime skill Bach managed to retain a spirit of church worship while creating an almost operatic narrative that movingly depicts Christs trial, death, and ultimate apotheosis. Bachs numerous revisions always demand a certain amount of scholarly decision-making, and this recording of the St John Passion uses the final 1749 version that not only draws on and reinforces the best of Bachs original concept, but incorporates the additional movements of the 1725 version.

Scherchen was one of the leading conductors in the middle part of the 20th Century, especially valued for his pioneering performances of the contemporary music of his time. He was essentially self-taught as a musician, and became a violist in the Blüthner Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic when he was sixteen. In 1911 he was an assistant to Arnold Schoenberg in the preparation of Pierrot Lunaire for performance. Following its Berlin premiere, the piece was taken on a tour in which Scherchen conducted.