|
Bach - St. John Passion / Suzuki, Bach Collegium JapanRating:
Release Date: January, 2003 Retail Price: $24.99 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: |
Bach - St. John Passion / Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan Reviews
One for the ages..
If you have the patience to let it work, this performance will pierce your heart with its solemn beauty. As distant and alien as Bach's music sounds to ears accustomed to being assaulted by "rap" and other aural garbage, it lifts the listener to the realm where Christ's sacrifice becomes intensely personal, yet magnificently universal. For those not familiar with the work, it tells the story of Christ's passion and death, interweaving texts directly from the Gospel of John, sung by soloists representing each part, with choral texts reflecting man's response to this wondrous yet heart-breaking tale. The result is a timeless masterpiece capable of moving the heart of even the most faithless and cynical. The scaled down forces in this performance make for a wonderful transparency to the sound. Each soloist brings just the right degree of personal identification with his or her part. And thankfully, the English subtitles make every word count.
If at this Easter season, you seek something less brutal, yet no less profound in its directness and impact than Mel Gibson's Passion, Bach will not let you down.
A thoroughly stylistic performance
Masaaki Suzuki's series of Bach cantatas has proved to be a success because of the utmost care about the subtlest details on performing Bach's music. More than that, his group, the Bach Collegium Japan, has a most exquisite sound and he has a nicest team of soloists. They generally record in the fabulous acoustics of the Shoin Women's University Chapel, but here they are in what I believe to be in the Suntory Hall. However, the acoustics are appropriately warm and immediate. Suzuki's style as a Bach conductor is very clean and light. Some may find that, for St.John's Passion, it is seriously lacking in drama, but I think that any Bachian should be delighted to listen to Bach's music played in such a well-thought and faultless way. More than that - there is genuine freshness and naturality in Suzuki's approach and this is very rewarding. He uses a small orchestra with period instruments and uses a small choir, with the soloists joining their colleagues for the choral moments. They produce a wonderfully articulate sound and have clean pronunciation - only they are not particularly illustrative of what is going on in the text. As alwaysSuzuki also has nice soloists, Midori Suzuki's boyish soprano is particularly delightful, but Robin Blaze is wonderfully stylist and offers an easiest voice and has no problem about his low notes, which are perfectly connected to the rest, but produce enough sound. Gerd Türk is also an asset, for his lightest spontaneous tenor takes readily to the high tessitura in which he has to sing his recitatives.
You like Bach - St. John Passion / Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan?
|
© 2004, 2005, 2006 DVD Booty | Don't Plunder Our Cache of Booty, Matey!
Hosting made possible by donations from Debt Consolidation Web, debt relief, and Payday Loan Time
