Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph Spering, Chorus Musicus Köln :: Bach: Mendelssohn 1841 Leipzig Matthäus-Passion

Felix Mendelssohn's celebrated 1829 revival of the St. Matthew Passion lives on in legend as the starting point of the rediscovery of Bach's music. Mendelssohn performed the work again in 1841 in Bach's own church in Leipzig; the score and performing parts from that occasion have survived, so it's possible to revive Mendelssohn's revival fairly accurately. Conductor Christoph Spering, Chorus Musicus, and Das Neue Orchester (playing 19th-century period instruments) have done just that--with fascinating results. Mendelssohn felt that he was being as scrupulously faithful to Bach's original as possible, but the changes are numerous and striking: Clarinets are used in place of oboes d'amore and da caccia (which were obsolete by Mendelssohn's day); the continuo accompanying the Evangelist's recitative is played by two cellos and a double-bass; several of the Evangelist's higher passages are taken down an octave (so as to make the ones that remain high stand out all the more). More notably, several arias are omitted, including "Ich will dir mein Herze schenken," "Komm, süsses Kreuz," and "Sehet, Jesus hat die Hand"; several more, including "Mache dich, mein Herze, rein," are shortened; "Erbarme dich" is given to the soprano soloist rather than the alto. Mendelssohn felt these changes were necessary to make the St. Matthew effective for his audience; certainly he didn't do the wholesale reorchestration that, for example, Mozart did with Handel's Messiah, but Mendelssohn's St. Matthew Passion feels--especially in this fine performance--very different from the Bach we hear from such modern-day Baroque instrument specialists as the Bach Collegium Japan (let alone the single-voice camp). Vive la différence! --Matthew Westphal