Bach's St. Matthew Passion, and Karl Richter

There is no higher pinnacle in all music than Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion (circa 1727). Going on soon for 300 years since it first appeared, I listened to it once again with amazement and admiration. No one beats Bach's St. Matthew Passion. For around three and a half hours, the procession of arias, choruses and recitatives (all expertly varied and contrasted) delights the ear and the intellect. Nothing outstays its welcome. With a wonderful variety of instrumental accompaniments in the many arias, Bach proves himself at least the equal of Handel when it comes to melody. How on earth someone in Saxony in the 18^th century could ever have conceived this music defies all imagination. They don't compose music like this nowadays.

I listened to the work on a DGG set from 1958 (really good sound from the old DGG) conducted by the 33 year old Karl Richter, who started his Bach career at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. I originally acquired this recording in 1959 or 60 as a gift from one of my sisters (a box of four LPs). I now have it on three CDs, expertly transferred by the old DGG. It's an all-star production of the best of German singers and instrumentalists in Munich at that period, with soloists including Ernst Haefliger, Irmgard Seefried, Hersha Töpper and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Tempi are relatively swift for those times, with nary a periwig, castrato or gut string in sight. It is my kind of Bach playing, and my kind of music; the first 20 seconds of the work are incredibly moving in announcing the tragic events to be narrated.

I am now firmly stuck on Bach for a period. It is no accident that he always features Number One when any lists of greatest composers are compiled. The Matthew Passion is assured of a further 300 years of life, but perhaps not in Israel, though the Jews in the St. Matthew Passion are not quite as villainous and blood-thirsty as those in the St. John Passion.

Heifetz, Primrose, and Feuermann

Despite the tens of thousands of recordings made over the past century plus, there are comparatively few Great Classics. Some are well known; Callas in Tosca (1953), Furtwängler conducting Tristan & Isolde (1952), Cortot, Thibaud & Casals in Schubert's D 898 piano trio (1926), Edwin Fischer playing the Bach 48 (1933-36), the Adolf Busch Beethoven recordings of the 1930s. And a few others.

On rare occasions, virtuosi get together to play and record music. I've been listening to Heifetz, Primrose and Feuermann playing Mozart's Divertimento K 563 (1941). This is another Great Classic as these three echt virtuosi soar and dive and complement each other. Heifetz does not dominate, but is a true chamber music partner. I've never been a fan of William Primrose, who has always struck me as an ex-violinist playing on a slightly larger violin tuned 1/5 lower so as to resemble a viola. However, he was a terrific player and is a worthy member of this string trio. In this recording, one just sits back and basks at three heavenly voices playing heavenly music. The recording transfer gives quite acceptable sound.

Mozart's String Quartets dedicated to Haydn

The string quartet with two violins, one viola and one cello is one of the greatest vehicles for great music. From around 1770 until 1828 the medium served as one where Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert often composed the kind of intimate and personal music that made a change from the music they wrote for the gallery, the opera house, or for the court. Not until Shostakovich in the mid twentieth century did the string quartet reach such personal and intimate heights. (As always, there were, however, exceptions to this including Janacek's two string quartets, and Mendelssohn's quartet in F minor Opus 80.)

I have been re-listening to the six quartets Mozart dedicated to Haydn; along with Mozart's five string quintets, they are among the greatest music he ever wrote and underline his absolute right to one of the places on the podium of supreme composers of all time. I chose the recordings made in 1962 by the old Juilliard Quartet, full-throated performances lovingly played from an era before the more anaemic sounds of the “period pratice” string quartets began to take over. Mozart would have loved the recording, I suspect. These CD transfers are from the French Diapason company. Published in 1785, the quartets show Mozart revelling in his compositional skills; 235 years after their first publication, the six works still amaze and enthral every time I listen to them.

Diana Tishchenko Re-visited

I had a re-listen to the CD by Diana Tishchenko. I was enthusiastic the first time round; I am enthusiastic on subsequent listenings. What greatly impresses me on this CD is that I find my listening is concentrated on the music, not on the violin playing. The playing takes care of itself; technically immaculate and, as a friend remarked, her violin makes a lovely sound, but she does not thrust the sound in your face, as many violinists do. In the Ravel sonata, she does not ham-up the blues movement, and in the third Enescu sonata, she does not ham-up the Romanian folk element.

Maybe I was a little too lukewarm about the pianist, Zoltan Fejervari last time. He and Tishchenko play beautifully together and it's a good partnership. For a change, the recorded balance between piano and violin -- always a difficult one -- is excellent, with the pianissimo high passages in harmonics in the Enescu sonata clearly audible, for once. My only sniff is about the silly title for the CD: Strangers in Paris would have made some sort of sense, but Strangers in PARadISe just looks cheesy.