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GRAMOPHONE (04/2017)
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Avie AV2369	MDG MDG69021985
Code-barres / Barcode : 0822252236927	Code-barres / Barcode : 0760623198569

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Reviewer: David Vickers

This admirable St John Passion by Apollo’s Fire has dramatic tautness tempered by musical finesse nurtured by conductor Jeannette Sorrell (directing from the chamber organ in the recitatives and arias). The Apollonian music-making is characterised by instrumental playing of elegant refinement, polished choral singing (23 voices, including all soloists except the Evangelist), and communicative delivery of the text. The recording was made in Cleveland in connection with a dramatised production in which characters sang from memory on a platform at the centre of the orchestra, and some of the choir were placed among the audience (from which position the angry mob calling ‘Kreuzige ihn!’ must have generated potent verisimilitude).

‘Herr, unser Herrscher’ has a measured transparency thanks to finely balanced instrumental strands and sweetly moulded choral phrasing. Chorales convey textural clarity and poeticism, and the pious lullaby ‘Ruht wohl’ is sculpted with deft harmonic shapeliness. Nicholas Phan’s ardent Evangelist paints with a breadth of vocal colours his descriptions of Peter’s bitter weeping and mortification that the crowd wish to free the murderer Barabbas; in ‘Erwäge’ his excellent soft singing regrettably caves in to loudly exaggerated forcefulness in some passages. Terry Wey’s voice quivers a little unevenly but ‘Es ist vollbracht’ has beguiling intimacy. Amanda Forsythe is technically sure and vocally charming in both of her arias, and there is sincere gentleness in Christian Immler’s ‘Mein teurer Heiland’ (its underlying chorale judged beautifully). Sorrell’s keen attention to detail ensures that in many respects this recording hits the sweet spot time and again.

If you enjoy the St John Passion with more flesh on its bones, Stuttgart’s Hymnus-Chorknaben, the instrumental ensemble Handel’s Company and conductor Rainer Johannes Homburg conjure a fascinating range of broader sonorities. The resolute personality adopted for the opening chorus plods with the large boys’ choir (upwards of 50 singers) lagging slightly behind the beat here and there, and swamping the standard slim Baroque band of 18 players, but the orchestral bass-line throws some rasping punches on account of the optional contrabassoon Bach added to his final revision of the score in 1749. There is copious lute continuo throughout – something Bach probably did in 1724 but not under normal circumstances; Lee Santana’s discreet plucking subtly supports Hille Perl’s spellbinding viola da gamba in ‘Es ist vollbracht’, sung by Franz Vitzthum with perfect decorum.

The distinctive sonority of two unison flutes is embraced in ‘Ich folge dir gleichfalls’ and Veronika Winter’s singing is profoundly lovely. Andreas Post’s occasionally acerbic Evangelist is deeply involved in the emotional pull of the storytelling: the scene depicting the interrogation of Christ by Pilate – with its mingling of narrative, theatrical and contemplative elements for numerous participants – is highly charged in its dramatic peaks and pensive in the responding numbers featuring violas d’amore (Thomas Laske’s ‘Betrachte, meine Seel’, performed with hushed serenity, and Post’s softly mellifluous ‘Erwäge’). Recorded in a fulsome acoustic at the Erlöserkirche in suburban Stuttgart, the technical nuts and bolts of the choral contributions are seldom perfect (the boys sound rough and ready in chorales and ‘Ruht wohl’ is clumpy). Nevertheless, the subject-matter is treated compellingly, and the range of colours from the instrumentalists in partnership with the excellent soloists is memorably poignant.

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