189.00 PLN

3 CD:

Nr kat.: URN22185
Label  : Urania (Italy)

St Matthew Passion BWV 244 Irmgard Seefried (soprano) Kathleen Ferrier (contralto) Walther Ludwig - Evangelist (tenor) Otto Edelmann (bass) Paul Schöffler - Jesus Erich Kaufmann - Peter Hardal Pröglhöf - Judas Otto Wiener - Pilate Walter Berry - Pontifex Anny Felbermayer - Pilate’s wife Gisela Rathauscher - First maid Rosl Sterba - Second maid Magdalena Stowasser - First witness Friedrich Uhl - Second witness Alois Forer/Anton Heiler - organ Vienna Choral Society (Wiener Singverein) Vienna Symphony Orchestra Herbert von Karajan (conductor) Recorded live: Vienna 9 June 1950 As with so many of these historical recordings one has to put up with an awful lot of unfamiliar or outmoded styles and unwanted noises off in order to relish their joys, but joys there are aplenty here despite the apparently negative start to this review. This is a live recording made at the Vienna International Bach Festival, a fortnight of the composer’s instrumental and choral music, which took place in the summer of 1950 to celebrate the bicentenary of his death. Sound restoration is good but plagued by creaking floorboards, coughing or by soloists clearing their throats in preparation for their next entry. Whether Karajan’s view of Bach is to your taste will probably depend upon whether or not you want the discs for the uniqueness of Kathleen Ferrier’s voice. Her distinctive qualities, and they are truly marvellous, remind us that coming up to the 50th anniversary of her death next year, 2003, she is by no means forgotten. They are matched by other pleasures, notably Paul Schöffler’s majestic Jesus, while Walther Ludwig’s masterful Evangelist is nowhere better than at the moment the cock crows at Peter’s third denial of Christ, his weeping full of tension and poignant drama. It is followed by the zenith of this performance, Ferrier’s emotionally charged account of ‘Erbarme dich’ (an aria she made a speciality almost as much as Gluck’s ‘Che faro’ from Orfeo) accompanied by an anonymous but divinely poignant violin solo from, presumably, the leader of the orchestra. Bach surely had Kathleen Ferrier in mind 200 years earlier when he wrote this miracle work. Christopher Fifield