Bach Spering

Einer der Höhepunkte des Bachfestes Leipzig 2014 im 300. Geburtsjahr Carl Philip Emanuel Bachs war die Aufführung und Einspielung seines Oratoriums "Die Israeliten in der Wüste" mit den Experten für historische Aufführungspraxis des Neuen Orchesters & Chorus Musicus Köln unter der Leitung von Christoph Spering.

Lobgesang, Mendelssohn's ''Hymn of Praise'', is no longer a rarity on disc, with a dozen versions listed. That makes it timely that Spering, following up the success of Herreweghe's Harmonia Mundi version of Elijah (4/94), here presents a performance in period style. When the composer's preference for fast speeds is well documented, and has so convincingly been followed up by his latterday successor at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Kurt Masur, it is perhaps surprising that Spering is far more relaxed in his choice of tempos. His overall timing—64'48'' as against Masur's 58'32''—shows what a wide discrepancy there is, and in no way does he let the music drag or become sentimental. For with clean, crisp textures this is a most refreshing performance, full of incidental beauties, of a work that for several generations was regarded as too sweet on the one hand, over-inflated on the other. Spering's clean directness and his obvious affection for the music reverses that jaundiced judgement.

It is not always easy to avoid writing a shade smugly about the arrangements Mozart made of choral works by Handel. Nowadays, increasingly, we try to listen to such works as Acis and Galatea and the Cecilian Ode in the form in which Handel composed them; to hear them through the prism of the classical musical consciousness is disconcerting. For once we feel that we know better than Mozart. Well, so we do, about Handel and the way he makes the best effect (at least on us); but a different kind of historical awareness is needed here, one that puts us into the frame of mind of late eighteenth-century Vienna and its perception of Handel.

Interesting that the librettist of this oratorio, none other than Pietro Metastasio, avoids biblical passages completely. In doing so, this lets in an emotive realism that allows a quasi-operatic treatment by Prague-born Myslivecek. The composer's penchant for Metastasio in his thirty-odd operas obviously extended to oratorio. The apostle Peter becomes a major figure in the drama. Absent from the crucifixion itself, he has to make urgent enquiry into the state of play. Enter Mary Magdalene - a Biblical character under much re-evaluation in current spirituality - who accompanied Jesus to the cross. Other characters include John (here of course Giovanni), the second eyewitness, Joseph of Arimathea (Giuseppe).

After the multi-award-winning album "Bach - Luther Cantatas", the Chorus Musicus Köln, the Das Neue Orchester and Christoph Spering offer us these excellent recordings of Bach's cantatas, including "O Eternity, You Word of Thunder, BWV 20", centerpiece of this album where gravitate cantatas BWV 93, 3, 10, 116, 124, to form an amazing and very interesting ensemble.