The Gathering Note

Although there are countless orchestras all over the world performing an innumerable amount of compositions, I would imagine it a rare thing to be in attendance at a performance where the music, performers and audience click in a way that makes everything gel so perfectly that time stops. I remember reading with envy as reports came out of England about Daniel Barenboim’s traversal of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. They were described as revelatory and once in a lifetime. It must have been something to be in attendance at those concerts. In all honesty, in my attendance at concerts over the years, there have been many exemplary performances, but few have been lasting. The truly magic performances stick in your head forever. One for me is hearing the Emerson String Quartet perform Beethoven’s Quartet, Op.132 in Ames, Iowa of all places. The slow movement grabbed me and moved me profoundly. Another is a couple of years later in Iowa City when I heard a piano recital by Gyorgy Sebok in February 1999. As an encore, he performed Chopin’s first nocturne to a stunned-into-silence audience at its profundity and sheer beauty. I remember going with a friend who never heard classical music before and seeing her shed a tear as he played. Sebok died later that year. When everything works, pieces of music come alive and leave an indelible mark on your pysche. The Music of the Baroque performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Monday, March 31, 2008 at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park was one such occasion.

Conductor Jane Glover is well-known for her performances of Classical and Baroque repertoire. She is a true academician when it comes to her study and attention to the details of a given work. Throughout this season, I have been graced with fine-tuned performances of works that wouldn’t be heard anywhere else. Under her direction, I have heard Haydn’s The Seasons, Mozart’s Les petits riens, and now the massive St. Matthew Passion, a work so imposing in all dimensions, that few would dare take it on. Music of the Baroque had performed the St. John Passion a few years earlier under Nicholas Kraemer, and now it was Glover’s turn to show what she can do with a sacred masterpiece. What she could do was incredible. Needless to say, she didn’t do it on her own, but all the choices she made were perfect to the intention and mood of the music. Bach himself could not have made better decisions interpretively. The large orchestra was divided in two, as specified by the music. It was fascinating to see the layout and see how Bach uses the two orchestras, sometimes separately, sometimes all together in the large choruses. The superb chorus, wonderfully prepared by Edward Zelnis, was also divided into two choruses, with the fabulous Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus adding their voices to their two choruses. The stellar tenor Paul Agnew was the Evangelist and Christopheren Nomura was the somber and masterful Jesus. The arias were performed by soprano Kimberly McCord, mezzo Catherine Wyn-Rogers, tenor Nicholas Phan and bass-baritone William Sharp. All the soloists were exceptional, especially since McCord and Sharp were last minute replacements for the ill Christine Brandes and Sanford Sylvan. As you can see, the forces were large and Jane Glover was in total control.

The pacing was so deliberate and contemplative. Glover never felt rushed, although her tempi were relatively quick, especially in the numerous chorales. Each section was performed as if each little part was prepared separately. Each interjection and exhortation by the chorus was filled with purpose. Glover did not let any second of this music pass without her full attention. She conducted without baton and her hands moved gracefully through the air, as did her body, especially in the chorus “Sind Blitze, sind Donner” where the choruses demand that the skies open and vanquish those that take Jesus away. The majority of the work belongs to the Evangelist, and no one could ask for a better one than Paul Agnew. He has a beautiful light tone that was clearly understandable as he spoke many pages of German text. His performance was nuanced and passionate. His recitative translating Jesus’s words “Eli, Eli lama asabathani” was deeply moving. You felt that you were in a church rather than a stage under Millennium Park. Nomura had committed his entire part to memory, making his performance as Jesus that much more affecting. The various other characters that come out in the story were taken by members of the chorus and Steven Huffines, as Judas, in particular, was excellent. He had a beautiful baritone voice, and I felt he could easily have a solo career. Among the aria vocalists, Catherine Wyn-Rogers stood out as superb. In my many recordings, her arias are given to counter-tenors, but she makes a convincing case in my opinion that they should be sung by a mezzo. As I listened, I wondered what they would sound like if Jessye Norman sang them. The voice of Wyn-Rogers had the same timbral quality and I was sold. Although I have not talked about the obbligato soloists in the orchestra, I cannot overstate the beauty and precision of their playing, especially Craig Trompeter on viola da gamba, which is a rather strange-looking instrument. Two organs were used and David Schrader for Orchestra I and Michael Beattie for II were both outstanding.

Let us not forget that the entire performance of the Passion takes a little over three hours. We started at 7:30pm and ended at 11:00pm, and despite that fact, the audience was resoundingly appreciative of all involved. It was a sincere recognition that what occurred on that day, at the place, with those people involved, was something for the ages. Fortunately, the concert was recorded and will be heard in the fall as part of Music of the Baroque’s broadcast series on WFMT 98.7 FM in Chicago, which is online for those of you outside the Second City. If you know me, you would know that Johann Sebastian Bach has been a demi-god to me for a very long time and his St. Matthew Passion, a supreme example of his art. I am heartened and gratified to now have a performance of a Bach piece in my permanent memory files. Transformative performances don’t happen that often, even when people try. See my review of the Seattle Symphony under Schwarz performing Bach’s Mass in B minor.