The first day of 2009. And, fittingly, I celebrated it by listening to Bach's St Matthew Passion -- all nearly four hours of it. This really is the pinnacle work of classical music (closely followed, as per my last post, by the Mass in B minor and Beethoven's C sharp minor string quartet). The recording I listened to for the first time today was recorded in 1960 and conducted by Otto Klemperer. Many now term Klemperer's Bach "slow" or "old fashioned". Well, so it is, especially in the chorales. But "slow" can also be termed considered, or majestic, or magisterial, or full of gravitas. Whatever; Klemperer and his excellent choir, orchestra and soloists make a convincing case that this is how Bach should be performed; unhurried, with clear textures and a supreme overall sense of structure and design. We are a long way from Rachel Podger or Jaap Schröder and their ilk, thank goodness. The St Matthew Passion means something to Klemperer, and had done for decades. Maybe one day the wheel will come full circle and we will stop this ridiculous quest of historical reconstructions of how Bach's music may have sounded in 1725 at the first performance of the St Matthew Passion; as if Bach were famed for calculating nuances of sound and colouring, anyway -- he who swapped violins for flutes and harpsichords for violins depending on who was less drunk that morning, and what good instrumentalist was in town at the moment. The refusal to let the music breathe properly, that I noted in Suzuki's recording of the Mass in B Minor, is not present with Klemperer. The score of the Passion breathes, in its own time, and every dynamic and tempo has its righful place in the scheme of things. 10/10, and three stars. And a good start to 2009.