Brot Nr.5

Bach and Pygmalion: the story of a passion linking the genius of the Thomaskantor to a reflection on inner drama and constantly renewed vocality. This Matthäus Passion marks a major stage in this fifteen- year companionship and testifies to the culmination of their work on Bach, characterised by its precision and humility. Read through the prism of a tragedy in five acts, at once intimate and theatrical, human and metaphysical, the Passion is revealed here in a new light: as a deeply moving epic exploring the very heart of Lutheran spirituality.

Hermann Max's recording of J. S. Bach: Matthaus Passion with the Rheinische Kantorei and Das Kleine Konzert embodies current orthodoxy in most respects: two choirs of 16 voices each are partnered by two orchestras of comparable size, with period instruments sounding at low (Baroque) pitch; tempos are mostly quite sprightly and textures light; ornamentation is sparing and discreet, but cadential appoggiaturas in the recitatives are mostly in place (though the latest fashion seems to be increasingly to omit them). Christoph Pregardien and Klaus Mertens are ideally cast as the Evangelist and Jesus: precise in diction, judicious in expression. The other soloists are more variable.

The music on this disc dates to 1996, shortly after the then-emerging young mezzo soprano Magdalena Kozená had graduated from the Bratislava College of Music. She gave a concert of Bach arias at a medieval Benedictine monastery in the old Moravian town of Trebic, as part of a music festival called Concentus Moraviae, and it evolved into the present disc. The disc itself was recorded not at the monastery, but at a Czech concert hall with very live, cathedral-like sound.

The music on this disc dates to 1996, shortly after the then-emerging young mezzo soprano Magdalena Kozená had graduated from the Bratislava College of Music. She gave a concert of Bach arias at a medieval Benedictine monastery in the old Moravian town of Trebic, as part of a music festival called Concentus Moraviae, and it evolved into the present disc. The disc itself was recorded not at the monastery, but at a Czech concert hall with very live, cathedral-like sound.

Though the catch-all title 'Melancholie' is slightly misleading, Christian Gerhaher's enterprisingly planned programme provides a conspectus of Schumann's art as a Lieder composer. With his bright, burnished high baritone, expressive diction and alert, unexaggerated response to mood and nuance, Gerhaher confirms his credentials as one of the most probing Lieder singers of the younger generation. While it is virtually impossible for a single voice to do equal justice to all 12 songs of the Liederkreis, he succeeds better than most.

The box contains 10 CDs and offers reference shots of all the central works such as the Psalms of David, the Cantiones sacrae, the Resurrection History, the Little Sacred Concerts, Choral Music and last but not least the Passions. The partly unpublished recordings show the Dresden Kreuzchor at the height of its development.