Tim Ashley 

Prom 12: St John Passion review – fascinating, beautiful and erratic

Some superlative playing in Bach's masterpiece, under the baton of Roger Norrington, but the evening's chief glory was the beautifully controlled choral singing, writes Tim Ashley
  
  

Roger Norrington, BBC Prom 12
An emotional whole … Roger Norrington conducts JS Bach's St John Passion at the Royal Albert Hall. Photograph: Chris Christodoulou/BBC Photograph: Chris Christodoulou/BBC

This year's Proms allow us to hear both of Bach's passions, albeit in radically different treatments. The Berlin Philharmonic brings Simon Rattle's and Peter Sellars' much-discussed "ritualisation" of the St Matthew as part of its visit in September. First, however, came Roger Norrington's interpretation of the St John with the Zürich Chamber Orchestra and Zürcher Sing-Akademie – a straightforward concert performance, fascinating, beautiful and erratic in equal measure.

Central to Norrington's approach was the careful yet unobtrusive differentiation of the score's component elements, so we were conscious throughout of how they interlock to form a dramatic and emotional whole. The recitatives that carry the core biblical narrative were taken slowly so that every word could register. The Sing-Akademie used scores for the choruses, but put them aside for the chorales, delivering the former with great intensity, but treating the chorales as moments of quiet introspection. The arias, meanwhile, were big emotional statements, done with operatic grandeur and agility.

Not all of it worked. Norrington's deliberate way with the recitatives resulted in occasional losses in tension, despite superlative singing from James Gilchrist's noble Evangelist and Neal Davies's assertive Christus. The soloists for the arias weren't ideally matched. Both tenor Joshua Ellicott, majestic if at times effortful, and bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann, uncomfortable in places with Norrington's swift-ish speeds, were late replacements for indisposed colleagues. Lucy Crowe was the rapturous soprano, Clint van der Linde the dark-voiced alto. There was some superlative playing, though the orchestral balance took a while to settle, with the all-important string figurations at the start vanishing beneath the lamenting woodwind. The evening's chief glory was the choral singing, beautifully controlled, wonderfully committed and admirably clear in a notoriously difficult acoustic for counterpoint.

On iPlayer until 24 August.

 

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