J.S. BACH

 

Matthäus-Passion

 

Soloists:

Gerlinde Sämann,

Marie Kuijken,

Petra Noskaiová,

Patrizia Hardt,

Christoph Genz (Evangelist),

Bernhard Hunziker,

Jan Van der Crabben (Jesus),

Marcus Niedermeyr

 

La Petite Band / Sigiswald Kuijken

 

This new Hybrid SACD recording of JS Bach’s great choral masterpiece has been produced by one of the great early music partnerships of recent times, the vocal and orchestral ensemble La Petite Band and its artistic director Sigiswald Kuijken. Incorporating an approach based on recent scholarship, the St Matthew Passion is performed here with a small number of soloists and instrumentalists. Comes with a 120-  page booklet, featuring the lyrics plus translations into English.

 

Twenty years ago La Petite Bande, (at that time with conductor Gustav Leonhardt and Sigiswald Kuijken as concertmaster), released their first recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. It was made with soloists, a chamber choir and an orchestra large enough to accommodate those vocal forces. Since then Kuijken's vision on this masterpiece has changed markedly, as ground-breaking musicological research of the last decades has led him to cut down the size of the ensemble used in performance. There is not a real choir anymore because the soloists perform also the choir parts, and the boy’s choir that is used in most performances of this Passion is replaced here by a single soprano voice.

 

La Petite Bande was founded in 1972 by Sigiswald Kuijken, and although it was not meant to become a permanent orchestra, the success of several recordings by the group under the direction of Gustav Leonhardt was such that it began to give concerts regularly. All its members are internationally renowned early music specialists.

 

Challenge Classical 3SACDs CC72357