CityLife

Manchester Camerata: Bach

NICHOLAS Kraemer's presentation of Bach’s St Matthew Passion was not obsessively ‘authentic’ – how could it be, when Bach was writing music to be heard in church as part of a service of worship, and we were in a concert hall? – but it was intimate and deeply felt, in a way that more performance-style versions rarely are.

Kraemer, after 25 years’ association with Manchester Camerata, was able to use the chamber orchestra’s resources along with those of the Bridgewater Hall itself (it was part of the ‘International Series’) to offer his own vision of the St Matthew – true to the world of baroque convention, though without period instruments for the most part, with modest choral forces and specialist soloists.

The choir of Clare College, Cambridge, positioned one group either side of the platform, both at an oblique angle to the audience, may sometimes have under-estimated the need for projection with an orchestra which, for a Bach Passion, was fairly large.

Most of the more complex textures were clear, however, and their lightness and incisiveness in attack paid off well in the choral interjections of the Sehet! Sehet, near the end of the work.

Oboe

The orchestra, led in one group by Richard Howarth (who contributed beautifully in Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott) and in the other by Julia Hanson (a lovely solo, too, in Gebt Mir Meinen Jesum Wieder!), was exemplary. The oboe playing (with oboi d’amore as well as cors anglais in use) was particularly fine.

But the greatest impressions were left by the soloists. Each was distinguished, but James Gilchrist, who has become almost indispensable for any Bach Passion performance today, showed just why in his Evangelist portrayal, with easy negotiation of the high, expressive tessitura and thoughtful appreciation of the drama and spiritual quality of the narrative.

Clare Wilkinson, too, and Stephen Loges, stood out for their clarity and feeling in the arias.

In Können Tränen Meiner Wangen Nichts Erlangen, for instance, the former returned to the piece’s opening with a daring pianissimo that was a real surprise.

It was in a multitude of touches such as this that the performance made its subtle mark.

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