More than a concert hall

You do not attend a performance of Bach’s St John Passion to be entertained or diverted. For the awesome narrative from St John’s Gospel, set to some of the greatest spiritual music of all time, concentrates on the arrest, crucifixion, and death of Jesus Christ. Stopping just short of the resurrection and redemption.

To put it another way, the glorious venue of Peterborough Cathedral became more than just a concert hall on Saturday evening and reverted to its real and abiding function as a Christian church. And, as the Dean of Peterborough pointed out in his welcome address, the focus of events again became the great figure of Christ on the Cross, symbolically suspended over the performing space. As Chris Dalliston also mentioned, Bach’s monumental score was written in 1724, and anyone who doubted the ability of Baroque composers to write music with an affective agenda will have been immediately convinced by the opening number.

The large chorus, including the Peterborough Choral Society and the Cathedral Choir, made a stunning impact with Hail, Lord and Master. But only after 18 bars of painful and piercing dissonance from the effective early music band, Instruments of Time and Truth.

Under the passionate, but always secure, direction of Steven Grahl the combined forces continued to tug at the heartstrings for the next two-and-ahalf hours in the familiar sequence of choruses, chorales, arias, and recitatives, culminating in Sleep Well and Rest. It’s the recitatives which tell the harrowing tale of Jesus’ last days and here the only imported soloist Nick Pritchard made a vivid impression. Singing in German, his fine tenor voice conveyed a startling, eyewitness account of the narrative, in which nobody emerges with any credit except Jesus himself.

All the other soloists were adult members of the Cathedral Choir, familiar from services and from Peterborough Vocal Collective concerts. I’m sure they won’t mind if I describe them as ‘the usual suspects’! Indeed, it’s one of Steven Grahl’s most notable achievements to have assembled such an array of talented and reliable musicians, all of them with distinctive voices.

As Pilate, Robbie Haylett brought a fierce, almost operatic intensity to his part, while Danny Purtell as Jesus had an appropriately gentler, darker-toned voice. In the aria Behold Him, Jonathan Hanley contributed a bright, bell-like tenor solo, and the team also included two contrasted alto voices.

Rosie Parker’s mellow and refined in From the Bondage of Iniquity, and Joe Bolger’s much more florid in It is Fulfilled.