Though Bach's St John Passion is a much smaller work than the St Matthew Passion, the rawness of its drama makes it in many respects more hard-hitting. It lacks the luxuriant warmth of the St Matthew's double choir and orchestra but compensates with writing that is at times strikingly representational. With a scaled-down Hallé augmented by a lute and viola de gamba, the sound of a period ensemble was only a stone's throw away. All that was missing was the distinctive colour of period wind-instruments and the tautness of a chamber choir.

In most choruses the Hallé choir were excellent, with their chorales benefitting enormously from the bright, airy tone of the Hallé Youth Choir. They didn't miss the ironically trivial bustle of the chorus depicting soldiers casting lots over Christ's clothes and their closing lullaby was movingly tender. But they didn't quite have the flexibility for their interjections of "Oh where?" in the bass's aria Haste to Golgotha.

The soloists were also rather mixed: countertenor Michael Chance, tenor Toby Spence and soprano Carolyn Sampson were certainly the most attuned to the expressive demands of Bach's operatic style. James Rutherford and Neal Davies were slightly stodgy as Pilate and Jesus, never quite getting beyond the blander intonations of choral singing; Rutherford's final aria with the chorale, in particular, seemed to lose its way despite beautifully warm support from the choir. Timothy Robinson was an impassioned Evangelist, though his voice didn't have enough power to be truly compelling.

Whatever quibbles could be levelled at any mix-and-match performance such as this one, with a full-sized choir and reduced orchestra, Elder's ability to make a modern symphony orchestra emulate a period-instrument sound is uncanny. His sensitivity to the soloists produced some miraculous playing, especially in Chance's last aria, delicately coloured by lute and viola de gamba.