Mätthaus-Passion

Sigiswald Kuijken is intimately acquainted with the St. Matthew Passion. His fascination with the work was inspired back in the 1950s by a number of traditional performances. Kuijken has performed the passion around the world with his ensemble La Petite Bande. Twenty years ago, La Petite Bande (with Kuijken as leader and Gustav Leonhardt as conductor) released its first recording of the passion. The performance had soloists, a chamber choir and an instrumental ensemble adapted to the setting. Kuijken’s views on performance practice in the piece have since evolved radically. Groundbreaking musicological work in recent decades has brought him to performing the passion with a drastically reduced ensemble and no conductor. There is no “choir” in the usual sense of the word; the choir is composed of just the soloists without additional singers. And a lone soprano replaces the boys’ choir. Opinion on this approach has been and remains divided. But Kuijken certainly had his reasons for making the changes.

To what do we owe the St. Matthew Passion even today usually being performed by immense choirs and orchestras? “For that we have to look back to the 19th century. It was then that Felix Mendelssohn became so enthralled with the music of Bach that he wanted to perform, among other things, the St. Matthew Passion. Theatricalism and grandiose forces fit perfectly with the 19th century Romantic spirit. Composers at the time did nothing so gladly as arranging Bach’s music and adapting it to their personal taste. Later, even Arnold Schoenberg ventured into Bach’s music. He arranged a number of Bach’s organ works for large orchestra; he was convinced that this was the ideal way to ensure that they would survive in the 20th century.”