Review

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute: Bach’s Matthew-Passion

by William Fazekas

2011 marks the fortieth anniversary of the Baroque Performance Institute, the two-week program sponsored each summer by the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. To commemorate the event, this year’s institute culminated in a performance this past Friday (July 1) of one of the grandest and most elaborate masterpieces of 18th century sacred music, J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. The work, conducted by BPI Artistic Director Kenneth Slowik, was presented in a rather controversial format, using only one singer on each of the eight choral parts: singers whose duties included the various solo arias and dramatic roles in the retelling of the Passion story.

Bach composed the Saint Matthew Passion in 1727 for performance on Good Friday of that year. The work is written for two choral groups of four parts each, and each with its own orchestra. The work recounts the final days of Jesus’ life: the Last Supper, his capture, indictment, crucifixion, and death, as recounted in the book of Matthew. The story is narrated primarily by an Evangelist, with another singer performing the role of Jesus, and others taking the smaller parts of Judas, Peter, Pilate, etc. Interpolated within this narrative are arias, choruses, and Lutheran chorales whose poetic texts comment on the action.

This “one part, one singer” approach to Bach’s choral music originated around thirty years ago with the musicologist Joshua Rifkin, who used often contentious scholarship to justify performances and recordings that were hugely successful in purely musical terms. However, to perform a work of such large scale as the St. Matthew Passion in such a fashion raises certain issues: on one hand, the specialized personnel required – both singers and instrumentalists – can only be assembled at an intensive program or festival such as BPI; on the other hand, a two-and-three-quarter-hour work of unrelievedly somber tone may be appropriate for a chilly spring afternoon, but is rather heavy fare for a sultry evening in early July. By the end of Friday’s performance, both audience and musicians appeared exhausted.

All in all, fourteen singers were used to cover all the vocal parts. (The chorale movements were fortified with the participation of voice students from BPI, planted in the first few rows of the audience.) Of these fourteen, pride of place was given to German baritone Max von Egmond, who has been either an instructor or a guest performer at BPI many years in the past. He was assigned to the part of Jesus, which he sang with the accomplished ease which comes with decades of familiarity with the role. However, special mention should be made of Thomas Cooley, who brought to the taxing part of the Evangelist a lyrical tenor voice, crisp German diction, and a remarkable control of nuance and dynamic range. The subtle shading he would bring to a phrase such as “weinete bitterlich” was breathtaking. An apparently indefatigable singer, Mr. Cooley would finish a long recitative as the Evangelist, only to immediately jump into the role of tenor I in a choral movement or aria.

Among the seven other principal singers, particularly outstanding were soprano I, Ellen Hargis (also a frequent participant at BPI), whose aria “Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben” was sung with an unworldly delicacy; and bass II, Dashon Burton, who lent his huge, dramatic voice to the role of Judas, and in the aria “Gerne will ich mich bequemen” spat out his consonants in such words as “Kreuz und Becher” to convey text.

The performance was not, strictly speaking, “one-on-a-part”: a total of twenty-seven instrumentalists comprised the orchestra. This was a “double orchestra” in a literal interpretation of the term – eight woodwind players and two positive organs – which, when all forces played together, resulted in a wall of sound with the full-blown richness of a tetraploid lily. Such was the case in the work’s architecturally massive opening movement, “Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen.” At most other times, including all the solo aria movements, only one or the other half-orchestra played, even in such instances as the sumptuous aria for baritone sung near the conclusion of the second half “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein” where a thicker sound could have been argued for.

The instrumentalists assembled were a veritable “who’s-who” of Baroque musicians from Northeastern Ohio. Among those who played obbligato parts in the various solo arias (in Bach’s arias, the voices and solo instruments are given roles of equal importance), particular shout-outs should be made to ‘cellist Allen Whear (in the aria “Geduld! Geduld!” with tenor II, Derek Chester), viola da gambist Catherina Meints (“Komm, süßes Kreuz,” with bass I, William Sharp), and violinist Marilyn McDonald (the delicate “Erbarme dich, mein Gott,” sung with velvety sensitivity by alto I, Jennifer Lane). These latter two, Ms. Meints and Ms. McDonald – faculty members of BPI since its founding – are particularly beloved at Oberlin, as attested by the exuberant applause they received at the end of the evening.

Bach’s choral writing is notoriously thick and tricky to perform, and the “one part, one singer” approach did much to clarify the counterpoint in the choral movements: in the brief chorus “Herr, bin ich?,” for instance, the twelve entrances of the themes could be heard clearly, although it’s odd to think that it was performed by fewer individuals than the disciples it is meant to represent. In the duet for alto and soprano “So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen,” the interruptions by the second chorus (“Lasst ihn! Haltet! Bindet nicht!”) had a crispness lacking in other performances, at the expense of the heft a full chorus would have provided. 

The performance was given in Oberlin College’s Warner Concert Hall, a spacious venue whose acoustics can be fine-tuned for specific ensembles by means of sliding curtains. The hall was nearly full at the outset, but the concert was a long one. By the end, instruments’ tunings were sagging, audience members were “listening” with closed eyes, and a noticeable number of the younger audience (seated in the back rows) had departed. But those that stayed to the end sent the tired musicians off with peals of applause, grateful not only for one long evening, but forty years of fine music.

Published on clevelandclassical.com July 5, 2011

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