MACMILLAN: St. John Passion – Christopher Maltman, baritone/ London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/ Colin Davis, conductor – LSO Live

by | Feb 14, 2009 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews | 0 comments

MACMILLAN: St. John Passion – Christopher Maltman, baritone/ London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/ Colin Davis, conductor – LSO Live Multichannel SACD 0671 (2 discs), 90:20 ****1/2 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi]:

In the plethora of passions popping up these days, this one has to rank among the finest. It seeks to make no political points, as in Osvaldo Golijov’s St. Mark Passion, but instead presents us with a wonderfully pious and heartfelt choral painting by a man who really believes the things he sets from the Gospel of St. John. James MacMillan has written some truly moving music, as well as some things that prove harder nuts to crack, but here he lets down the guard a little bit and tries to make an appeal to the more popular element in his audience. By that I do not mean to indicate there is any sense of “dumbing down” the music—far from it—but its tonal persuasion is much less tentative than some other works, and the appeal is far more dramatic in the traditional scheme of things than you might imagine. In this piece he seeks a direct and heart-to-heart manner of expression, and achieves it unerringly.

There is only one first-person narrator here, and that is the person of Christ. All other parts, whether crowd or singular are assigned to the large or smaller choruses, and in a way this give this Passion more intimacy than you might expect from one of Bach’s. For MacMillan uses these choral groups in passages of great power and uncanny nuance, so that we are able to perceive the impact of personal expression, anguish, anger, and perplexity as utterances of a completely personal and one-to-one nature, while absorbing the emotion of any one moment from the collective dynamis of the massed choral forces. And the music itself is so varied and original—even more tuneful than you can believe, and this is not something we normally associate with MacMillan.

This would have been an easy five stars as the LSO, Colin Davis, and the choral groups (not to mention Mr. Maltman’s performance) perform authoritatively and splendidly, obviously relishing this magnificent work. But alas, despite the good surround separation, we still get the typical LSO Live boxed-in feeling around the stage. There is that last degree of shed overhang that keeps the sound from blooming as it should. I do wish they would find a way around this, for it keeps any number of superb performances on this orchestral label from being absolute collector’s items. But this is a piece you simply must hear if you have any interest in contemporary sacred orchestral and choral work.

— Steven Ritter
 

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