Dunedin Consort Bach John Passion St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral Edinburgh March 2024 Review
Dunedin Consort Bach John Passion at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh was a double celebratory event. It is 300 years since Bach unveiled this work to the Leipzig congregation on Good Friday 1724 and it is also 150 years since the foundation stone of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral was laid.
This was a huge work for Dunedin Consort to perform, making many demands of not only the musicians, but also for the vocalists and, unusually for Bach, this work went through several revisions by him during his lifetime.
With his “John Passion” Bach was in his first year as Cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig at the cutting edge of modernism, and the very genre of an Oratorio Passion which took the standard passion narrative and interwove it with arias, choruses and chorals was then only a few years old. One can only imagine how the first congregation to hear this work must have responded to it as it has been specially written and devised to fit into the Good Friday Vesper liturgy with the focal point of the day, the sermon, fitting in between the two halves of this work. The work, was however, due to a last minute change first performed at St Nicholas Church in Leipzig.
This need to conform to a very specific narrative and format for a specific event in the church calendar does mean that in some areas Bach is sticking to an older, well established musical format that everyone present would be familiar with but, in other areas, this is the master of harmony and counter-point being innovative in so many different ways.
Performing this work at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral which was well attended with people gave a little glimpse of what being in that congregation 300 years ago might have been like. When you add in the clergy, choir, the vibrant colours of the church, the aroma of incense, plus the expectation of the day itself, this event must have been a sensory spectacular.
This cathedral is a wide and high space for Dunedin Consort to perform in and is, I imagine, a challenging acoustic space to fill but, as always, they did so in style and somehow provided a very intimate sound in a very large public space.
The John Passion is a little unusual as in some ways it fits into an operatic performance style, but in others it is very much a work of religious devotion that was written for a four-part choir with soloists, and an instrumental ensemble with the Gospel of St. John as its inspirational source material.
Much of the weight of this passion story is told by the Evangelist and it is for any vocalist a very demanding part, but here Nicholas Mulroy in the dual role of Director and Evangelist gives us all the presence and authority that is needed to both tell this story and hold all of the other elements together.
It might come as a surprise to some people how little we hear from Jesus (Stephan Loges) in this passion, but whether in this role or as part of the larger ensemble of singers, Stephan gave the well balanced performance that was needed throughout this work.
A special mention of course has to go to Anna Dennis (soprano) and Beth Taylor (mezzo-Soprano) as Bach threw in more than a few musical challenges for anyone performing these roles.
Sung in German (with English translations in the programme), Dunedin Consort’s Bach John Passion was a special performance in a very special building.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This was a huge work for Dunedin Consort to perform, making many demands of not only the musicians, but also for the vocalists and, unusually for Bach, this work went through several revisions by him during his lifetime.
With his “John Passion” Bach was in his first year as Cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig at the cutting edge of modernism, and the very genre of an Oratorio Passion which took the standard passion narrative and interwove it with arias, choruses and chorals was then only a few years old. One can only imagine how the first congregation to hear this work must have responded to it as it has been specially written and devised to fit into the Good Friday Vesper liturgy with the focal point of the day, the sermon, fitting in between the two halves of this work. The work, was however, due to a last minute change first performed at St Nicholas Church in Leipzig.
This need to conform to a very specific narrative and format for a specific event in the church calendar does mean that in some areas Bach is sticking to an older, well established musical format that everyone present would be familiar with but, in other areas, this is the master of harmony and counter-point being innovative in so many different ways.
Performing this work at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral which was well attended with people gave a little glimpse of what being in that congregation 300 years ago might have been like. When you add in the clergy, choir, the vibrant colours of the church, the aroma of incense, plus the expectation of the day itself, this event must have been a sensory spectacular.
This cathedral is a wide and high space for Dunedin Consort to perform in and is, I imagine, a challenging acoustic space to fill but, as always, they did so in style and somehow provided a very intimate sound in a very large public space.
The John Passion is a little unusual as in some ways it fits into an operatic performance style, but in others it is very much a work of religious devotion that was written for a four-part choir with soloists, and an instrumental ensemble with the Gospel of St. John as its inspirational source material.
Much of the weight of this passion story is told by the Evangelist and it is for any vocalist a very demanding part, but here Nicholas Mulroy in the dual role of Director and Evangelist gives us all the presence and authority that is needed to both tell this story and hold all of the other elements together.
It might come as a surprise to some people how little we hear from Jesus (Stephan Loges) in this passion, but whether in this role or as part of the larger ensemble of singers, Stephan gave the well balanced performance that was needed throughout this work.
A special mention of course has to go to Anna Dennis (soprano) and Beth Taylor (mezzo-Soprano) as Bach threw in more than a few musical challenges for anyone performing these roles.
Sung in German (with English translations in the programme), Dunedin Consort’s Bach John Passion was a special performance in a very special building.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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