Eliot gardiner bach6/21/2023 ![]() Chorales are sung with an ideal sensitivity while the many turba scenes in the second part fully communicate the almost barbaric rage of the crowd. But the choral contribution is, as one would expect from this ensemble, wonderfully balanced, immaculately tuned and tremendously dramatic. Chorales also exhibit a level of percussive diction that some will find overwrought or affected. Documentary, The Bach Cantata Pilgrimage undertaken by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists under their conductor, Sir John Eliot Gardiner. ![]() ![]() This is, at least in part, due to some exemplary exacting diction from the choir: one need look no further than their initial entrance in the opening chorus, where the rolled ‘R” in the three “Herr” exclamations has an almost alarming ferocity. But this latest performance has a thrilling immediacy and emotional rawness that very often eclipses the other two. And as with the second recording, this one-off performance has occasional rough edges not found in the first studio production. Following Covid protocols, the singers and instruments are spread throughout the theater, and this spatial separation does occasionally result in artificially engineered balances. This latest recording was made on Good Friday April 2, 2021, in Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. ![]()
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