Tafelmusik shifts the heart and soul
St. Matthew Passion (out of 4) By J.S. Bach. Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Chamber Choir and guests. Masaaki Suzuki, conductor. Repeats Sunday at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. tafelmusik.org or 416-964-6337 Thanks to the internet and music streaming, the big masterpieces of world art are more accessible than ever. But some of the greatest masterpieces, like the St. Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach, are best experienced live and in person.
Once every decade or so, Toronto’s period-performance experts at Tafelmusik give us an opportunity to live along with this complex and moving meditation on the arrest, crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.
This week’s performances are led by Masaaki Suzuki, the founder of Bach Collegium Japan and widely acknowledged world expert on all things J.S. Bach.
With 62 people onstage — conductor, five vocal soloists, the 26-member Tafelmusik Chamber Choir and an orchestra of 30 — the audience at Thursday night’s opening concert experienced the Passion in a vivid, gripping, full wash of sound. (There were also nine young members of Elise Bradley’s Toronto Children’s Chorus in the balconies for certain choruses.)
This is three hours of music where the text is meant to be the star of the show. The Pas
sion, composed in1727, was first heard during the long, solemn Lutheran Church service on Good Friday — and where Thursday’s audience was granted an intermission halfway through, the people who first heard it at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany, would have had to listen to a sermon.
What’s unique about Bach’s two surviving settings of the Passion (the other is based on the Gospel of John) is how the narrative stops so that the audience or congregation can meditate on the personal experience of Christ’s suffering, through beautiful arias.
For any Christian, the story and meditations are powerful enough without music. Bach’s rich score — for double orchestra and double chorus — height- ens the pathos. Baroque-era music comes fully encoded with emotional information in the choice of instruments, keys and rhythms. Straightforwardly performed by good musicians, this would be rewarding enough.
Suzuki, like many current Baroque music specialists, did everything he could to amp up the experience. The orchestra throbbed. The choir bit. The evangelist narrated the story with the urgency of an announcer calling the final game of the World Series.
It all became a bit too much at times, feeling forced. But then I thought of all the people who will enjoy the music without any connection to the Christian story, and who might appreciate the expressive kick-in-thepants in the same way one enjoys a moving opera.
Musically, everyone was in top form, including the soloists. British tenor James Gilchrist was a riveting evangelist. Swiss bass-baritone Stephan MacLeod, Canadian baritone Tyler Duncan and Icelandic-Scottish soprano Hannah Morrison acquitted themselves well. SwissAmerican counter-tenor Terry Wey was spectacular, especially in his star aria, “Erbarme dich, mein Gott” (Have mercy on me, my God).
In the final chorus, we are all invited to lie down and rest in Christ’s grave. Suzuki let up on the tension, the music slowed and rocked us gently to sleep as the orchestra played and the chorus sang in perfect balance. The gaudy moments were forgotten as the full scale of this masterpiece came into view.
This is not music that entertains. This is an experience that shifts something inside the heart and soul, especially when performed this well.