Hall One, Kings Place
Evangelist: John Mark Ainsley
Christus: Roland Wood
Malin Christensson (soprano)
Iestyn Davies (alto)
Andrew Tortise (tenor)
David Stout (Pilate/bass)
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
Aurora Orchestra
Nicholas Collon (conductor)
I hope readers will forgive
me if I make this review relatively brief, the reason being that events outside
the control of the performers, or indeed the hall, made it rather difficult to
come to a conventional judgement concerning the performance. A good part of the
second part fell under the shadow of an audience member apparently losing
consciousness, collapsing, and receiving medical treatment, most of that going
on, immediately next to my seat, whilst the performance continued. I mention
that not to over-dramatise, and certainly not in any sense to complain, my
thoughts being very much with the man concerned, but simply to explain why
inevitably, I am not in the best position to go into great detail.
This was the first time I had
heard the Aurora Orchestra in Baroque repertoire, though I have had quite a bit
of Mozart from them and from Nicholas Collon. The swift tempo for the great
opening chorus had me worried, as did the relative reticence of the strings,
but my fears were confounded; tempi were, at least by present-day standards,
remarkably unobjectionable, and more than that well-chosen. Nor was there for
the most part a lack of flexibility such as one all too often hears now in this
repertoire. The orchestra was very small (strings 4.4.3.2.1) – though doubtless
the ayatollahs of one-to-a-part ‘authenticity’ would dissent – but Hall One at
Kings Place is not a large space, and for the most part, it was only in making
mental comparisons with great recorded performances such as those by Gunther
Ramin, Eugen Jochum, and Richter that one keenly felt the loss. Likewise,
though warmer string tone would at times have been desirable, there was
commendably little of the hair-shirt to the performance. I am having to rely on
the evidence of my ears, but it sounded to me as though some at least, perhaps
all, of the violins were employing gut strings. Vibrato was mercifully not
absent – a noteworthy feature in our Alice in Wonderland world of Bach
performance. The woodwind were especially fine, every obbligato solo assumed
with excellence of technique and feeling. Oliver Coates’s cello stood out from
the continuo group and indeed as a superlative obbligato instrument.
The Choir of Clare College,
Cambridge, offered fine performances, by turn angry and devotional, as text and
role required. The turba choruses
were vivid, the chorales heartfelt but clear-eyed. Diction, moreover, was
thoroughly excellent. The tiny part of the Maid, taken by one of the choir
members, was unfortunate in intonation, but otherwise there was little about
which anyone might reasonably complain. John Mark Ainsley occasionally took his
Evangelist to the limit of what might be desirably in terms of hectoring, but
there was no doubting his commitment and understanding and, so long as one did
not insist upon the mellifluous tones of an Ernst Haefliger, much by which to
be moved. Roland Wood’s Christus was less individual, but well delivered, and
that may indeed have been the point. He is not, after all, a ‘character’ in the
conventional sense. All of the other soloists shone, Malin Christensson
striking a fine balance between an almost operatic beauty of tone and attention
to the text, likewise Iestyn Davies, the ‘operatic’ quality of whose outburst
in the extraordinary ‘Es ist vollbracht!’ could hardly have been more
arresting. (If I still find a counter-tenor more apt for Handel than Bach,
still preferring the warmth of a mezzo or contralto, then that is arguably just
a personal matter.) Andrew Tortise offered plangency and, again, detailed attention
to the text, whilst David Stout’s baritone suggested a consolation consonant
with that offered by the Aurora woodwind.
That, then, is indicative of
my experience, compromised though it was by events. It certainly augurs well
for a December Aurora/Clare Mass in B minor. I wish, however, that the Kings
Place website had not described the work as ‘Bach’s iconic St John Passion’. It
is surely now time that that much-abused word be proscribed until further
notice, if only so that it might regain a little meaning.
