{"id":517,"date":"2009-04-08T15:57:37","date_gmt":"2009-04-08T15:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=517"},"modified":"2009-04-08T15:57:37","modified_gmt":"2009-04-08T15:57:37","slug":"bach-in-manchester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/bach-in-manchester\/","title":{"rendered":"Bach in Manchester"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"js-bach\"
\nLast night I heard a thrilling performance in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, performed by Manchester Camerata<\/a>, the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge<\/a>, and the choristers of Manchester Cathedral<\/a>, under Nicholas Kraemer.\u00a0\u00a0 The two orchestras and choirs were arranged on the left and right sides of the stage, with the children’s chorus in between.\u00a0 I have seen this work staged in many different ways, including with the choirs seated side-by-side, and even enmeshed together (overlayed<\/em> is what a computer scientist would say; gemuddled<\/em> might be the appropriate German word).\u00a0\u00a0 I think last night’s staging was probably the best I have heard, since the various parts were much more distinguishable than they are normally, and the stereophonic effects quite powerful.
\nThe evangelist was James Gilchrist, whom I have heard in this part before, and he gave an intense and very dramatic performance, as close to a theatrical performance as a singer can get.\u00a0\u00a0 The other soloists – Matthew Hargreaves (as Christ), Elizabeth Weisberg, Clare Wilkinson, Mark Le Brocq and Stephen Loges – all gave solid, hall-filling and hall-stopping\u00a0performances.
\nThe continuo part was played on two small organs, a cello and a\u00a0lute.\u00a0\u00a0 This is the first time I have\u00a0heard a lute in this Passion –\u00a0I guess finding a viola da gamba player is normally hard enough, let alone a lutist.\u00a0 I was sitting close enough to hear the lute, played by Lynda Sayce, and it added a nice, somewhat\u00a0bitter-sweet, edge to the overall sound.\u00a0\u00a0 I doubt this could be heard further back, though.\u00a0\u00a0 The lute, the cello, played by Jonathan Price,\u00a0and one organ, played\u00a0by Ashok Gupta, were physically located around the Evangelist, which had the effect of making the singer and continuo\u00a0more of a single unit in the recitatives than is usual.\u00a0 Often, the recitatives in the music of Bach seem a little out of place\u00a0to me – neither quite speech nor quite song –\u00a0and so putting the singer with the continuo created a\u00a0mini-ensemble which had its own coherent logic.\u00a0\u00a0 I was sitting quite close to this group, and thus could see their playing and their co-ordination with one another, as well as hear each part well.\u00a0\u00a0 I was particularly impressed by Gupta’s confident playing.
\nThe other organ, played by Christopher\u00a0Stokes, was at the far rear of the stage, and I could hear it less well.\u00a0 I suppose it was placed there to be near the walk-on soloists.\u00a0\u00a0 In the main, the voices of these soloists did not project so well last night, at least not to my position in the left front stalls, diagonally opposite and down stage from them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (I expect the hall’s acoustics were not designed for projection in that way – most concert hall projection is designed to be up and out from the stage, rather than across and down stage).\u00a0 Perhaps because of his strong voice, the only singer who stood out\u00a0in this regard was Adam Drew (as Judas), who sang confidently and dramatically.
\nWith a work of such great spiritual depth, I always feel that immediate applause is not appropriate.\u00a0 We should sit, still and silent,\u00a0for a few moments upon completion, to meditate on the meaning of what we have just heard. I’ve never\u00a0met an audience that agrees with me, however, and last night was no exception.
\nOf the dozen or so times I have heard this Passion, across three continents, last night’s superb performance was one of the best two or three.<\/p>\n

Earlier posts on music are <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I heard a thrilling performance in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, performed by Manchester Camerata, the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and the choristers of Manchester Cathedral, under Nicholas Kraemer.\u00a0\u00a0 The two orchestras and choirs were arranged on the left and right sides of the stage, with the children’s chorus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,21,56,71,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concerts","category-culture","category-music","category-religion","category-reviews","p1","y2009","m04","d08","h15"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}