Bach Matthew Passion Roskilde

Johann Sebastian Bach - Matthäus-Passion / St. Matthew Passion BWV 244 {3x SACD Box}
Le Petite Bande / Sigiswald Kuijken
PS3 SACD ISO (2.0/5.1): 3,62/2,71/2,01 GB | EAC Rip, FLAC LOG & CUE: 716 MB | 24B/88,2kHz FLAC (2.0): 2,45 GB | Full Artwork: 393 MB | Recovery Info + PAR2
Label/Cat#: Challenge Classics CC72357 | Country/Year: Europe 2010 | Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Sacred | Hoster: Filepost/Filefactory

…I greet this stunning performance as the way to hear this masterpiece. ~ J.F. Weber, Fanfare

Ton Koopman has recorded Bach's St. Matthew Passion twice, and in many ways, he seems to have changed his mind about the work. His 1992 recording for Erato was, for an original instrument/historically informed performance, large in scale, broad in scope, dramatic in execution, and heavy in sound. This, his 2005 recording for Antonie Marchand, is likewise an original instrument/historically informed performance, but it is more intimate in scale, more concentrated in scope, and lighter in sound. But, even with these changes, Koopman's second Matthew Passion is not only still dramatic in execution, it is far more dramatic in execution, and thus in its way even more compelling. Musically, both performances are superb.

In Spring 2015 the Academy of Ancient Music – described as “the finest period-instrument orchestra in the world” by Classic FM – releases a significant new recording of JS Bach St Matthew Passion BWV244, directed from the harpsichord by Richard Egarr.
Performed in the original 1727 version, and with a superlative roster of soloists, this recording is striking in its immediacy, clarity and directness, with numerous insightful and compelling details lost in subsequent versions.

This performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion is sung in English and played on modern instrument. If that bothers you, don't bother checking out this recording. If it doesn't bother you, and you like the idea of a heartrending, awe-inspiring, and profoundly moving performance of Bach's sacred dramatic masterpiece, by all means, try this recording. David Willcocks, the dean of English choral conductors, leads the combined forces of the Bach Choir, the Boys' Choir of St. Paul's Cathedral, and the Thames Chamber Orchestra along with six A-list British soloists in a deeply human, intensely spiritual, and amazingly dramatic performance of the work.

Gardiner’s reading of the St. Matthew Passion is conceived and executed on the highest level, an example of period practice that is unlikely to be bettered any time soon. The performance as a whole vibrates with life: soloists are first-rate, and wonderfully well chosen for their respective parts, and the work of chorus and orchestra is exemplary. The recording, made in 1988 in the spacious ambience of The Maltings, Snape, near Aldeburgh, is well balanced and exceptionally vivid.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, as part of his regular duties as kapellmeister in Hamburg, composed 19 passion settings, alternating the four Gospel texts so that a new setting of a given text appeared once every four years, as his predecessor Georg Philipp Telemann had done. Until the discovery of the Berlin Sing-Akademie collection in Kiev in 1999, all that remained of this considerable body of work were bits and fragments of individual pieces, most of them extant because they were used in other contexts.