Bach: St John Passion (Complete oratorio)

SACD/hybrid pcm, stereo, multichannel

"Fine soloists such as the German tenor Gerd Türk and Dutch soprano Caroline Stam again join the exemplary choral forces of Jos van Veldhoven in the lush, reverential but joyous approach to Bach's masterworks which is the Veldehoven trademark. " Review of St John Passion, The Observer

After the extremely successful release of the Christmas Oratorio, performed by the Netherlands Bach Society in the autumn of 2003, Channel Classics now releases the recording of J.S. Bach's St. John Passion. Once again, the recording has been made in collaboration with the Catharijneconvent Museum of Utrecht, so that the edition of the St. John Passion is accompanied by a richly illustrated text book. This enables the listener to experience the entire cycle of the Passion both in music and images. The illustrations are drawn from the unique collection of the Catharijnenconvent Museum, which possesses the largest collection of liturgical art in the Netherlands. This issue of the St. John Passion is also a special event in the world of music, because a choice has been made for Bach's very earliest version of this work (1724) in a reconstruction by musicologist Dr. Pieter Dirksen.

The Netherlands Bach Society performs the work in a small-scale scoring with ten singers and eleven instrumentalists, no distinction being made between choristers and soloists. According to the most recent research, this scoring constitutes a very close approximation of the ensemble with which Bach gave the first performance of the St. John Passion. Bach's St. John Passion is less well known to some than his St. Matthew Passion: unjustly so, in many people's opinion. Judge for yourself, as you treat both your ears and eyes to this performance of the Netherlands Bach Society.