St. Matthew Passion

Bach St. Matthew Passion (St. Matthäus Passion) oratorio. Features singers Mark Padmore (tenor), Peter Harvey (bass), Maria Espada and Renate Arends (sopranos), Ingeborg Danz and Barbara Kozelj (mezzo-sopranos), Peter Gijsbertsen (tenor), and Henk Neven (bass). Iván Fischer conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Choir, and the National Children’s Choir (Chorus Master Gijs Leenaars). Directed for TV by Dick Kuijs. Released 2013, disc has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

Jonathan Freeman-Attwood writing in the July 2013 Gramophone at 76, praises all aspects of this recording (especially the playing by the orchestra) but one: he feels that Fisher's "pure, abstract line ignited in a clean, rhetorical glow" is still lacking in passion, tenderness, and ardour.

Buy on Amazon

What's New

Here's news about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, and paintings. In the journal below are independent (and hard-to-find critical) reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.

Feb 25. We have just completed one of our most ambitious reviews: Einstein on the Beach opera, the surreal 4 and 1/2 hour cult legend. Kudos, encomiums, and accolades to Opus Arte for giving us this authoritative and weirdly fascinating recording, which we grade A+. Absorbing and learning Einstein is uniquely challenging. We try to help out by providing aids not included in the keepcase materials: an accurate libretto and a list of segments in the opera with correct Opus Arte time stamps. Good luck!

We have some other good grades with an A for the recent Met The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) and a B- for an earlier The Pearl Fishers from Naples. Also, we recently gave an A- for the new Don Quixote from the Vienna State Ballet.