Stephen Layton’s annual performance of Bach’s St John Passion with his choir Polyphony and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has long been established as a Good Friday tradition in the classical calendar. It has never, it should be pointed out, been a matter of routine, rather a regular return to one of the great devotional masterpieces in order to rethink it afresh. This year’s performance was remarkable in many ways.
Layton’s interpretation was rooted in the careful calibration of the balance between narrative and reflection, setting the tone with the turbulent figurations and insistent pulses of the opening chorus, before proceeding with a quiet intensity that gradually built as a single emotional arc as the work progressed. Playing and choral singing were both rich in detail. Woodwind alternately sobbed and consoled. Strings hectored and mourned. Obbligatos, beautifully done, were reminders that the soloists voicing their grief are never ultimately alone. Polyphony, who are exemplary in Bach, did as much with the text as the vocal lines, ensuring every word registered in both chorales and complex counterpoint, fiercely depicting the crowd’s demands for Jesus’s death, and deeply affecting as sadness turns to hope at the close.
The soloists were similarly superb. Singing from memory, Nick Pritchard’s Evangelist, in the finest account of the role I’ve heard live, drew us through the narrative with extraordinary vividness, alert to every shift in mood and verbal inflection. James Rutherford was the forthright Jesus, assertively facing Ashley Riches’ troubled, questioning Pilate. Riches also took the bass arias, urgent yet elated in Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen and allowing Mein teurer Heiland to unfold with grave eloquence. Tenor Ruairi Bowen sounded impetuous in Ach, mein Sinn, and did fine things with Erwäge, among the most exacting arias in Bach’s output. Mezzo Helen Charlston sang Es ist vollbracht! with rich tone and sorrowing dignity. Rowan Pierce was the soprano, her voice like a flash of silver, radiant throughout. Outstanding, all of it, and often quite extraordinarily moving.
• The photograph accompanying this article was replaced on 10 April 2023. In an earlier version we pictured the Choir of the Enlightenment, rather than Polyphony as stated and intended.
