St John Passion [complete oratorio]

"These performances, taped at the end of an English Baroque Soloists tour in 2006, exude a tremendous sense of common purpose and an un-dogmatic stylistic assurance...Gardiner gets the music to "speak" without ever sounding fussy. In short, he achieves that rare feat of revitalising the familiar."
(Financial Times)

"Padmore's Evangelist is both ringingly true and acutely observed...perhaps the most disarming quality overall is that Gardiner's understanding of devotional ritual - drawn unquestionably from his unique Pilgrimage a few years earlier - translates into a new world, not wrinkle-free but one where sadness and hope seem to hover as tantalisingly in this work as I have heard." Editor's Choice Gramophone Magazine, June 2011

"A splendid new account of the St. John Passion, which all devotees of Bach's vocal music should try to hear."
(Recording of the Month MusicWeb May 2011)

"To borrow a phrase used more than one by Gardiner, his is a reading which lives viscerally in the 'here and now'...throughout, the Monteverdi Choir is typically alert and tautly-sprung. Crowd scenes crackle with indignation...while the chorales are loving sculpted around a close reading of the texts...Padmore's Evangelist holds the whole together with the supple, hypnotic élan of a born story-teller...Truly this is a jewel beyond price."
(BBC Music Five Stars May 2011)