Bach's St. Matthew Passion (Music I Just Didn't Get Until I Heard The Version By...)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2023
- Yes, Bach's iconic masterpiece gave me nothing but aggravation for a number of reasons--that is, until I heard the first recording (1984) by Philippe Herreweghe on Harmonia Mundi. The artists were new to me, the label was new, and most importantly, they made the music sound new. In short, I had a "moment." What works (and performances of them) provided you with a "breakthrough" experience?
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Can't help recalling a rehearsal of "Gianni Schicchi" I was doing during the Lenten season, when the title baritone (well-known in Chicago, involved i n many CSO/Solti/choral performances...and also an occasional contributor here), walks in and sits down with a aura of dejection about him. "Anything wrong?" I asked, to which he (having just come from a CSO rehearsal) replied "If I have to hear ONE MORE aria about nails, crowns of thorns, crucifixion, suffering, bleeding, etc.. I'm going to go NUTS!" Then we dove into Puccini's classic comedy. LR
I was lucky enough to produce a live concert broadcast of it with most of that cast for ABC radio in Australia when Hereweghe visited for the Melbourne Festival. It was a life changing and life affirming moment.
Thanks for sharing that story, Dave. I find it incredible that someone could have said that to a kid
Debussy's Images and La Mer always sounded like muddled mush to me on the old recordings I had, but Boulez's versions were a revelation, such clarity!
I love Philippe Herreweghe’s Bach recordings.
My Breakthrough experience- in spite of always loving Prokofiev- I never really "got" the Symphony- Concerto for cello and orchestra: not even with Rostropovich: That until I heard Han-Na Chang recording with Pappano and the LSO- what a great performance! It really made me fall in love with this work.
I had exactly the same experience. Check out my review at ClassicsToday.com.
That was great Dave. I appreciate your honesty in telling that whole story. And I have the feeling our appreciation of music is too often stymied by personal prejudices of one kind or another.
Thanks for bringing up this point about getting a piece. The piece I didn't get for a long time was the Berg Violin Concerto. Though it clearly contains a memorial to Mahler's daughter, it didn't make complete sense. How could a basically atonal piece be a memorial to anything, I asked myself. Then I went to see it in person. It was a performance with Edo DeWart conducting (I think) the San Francisco Symphony, and the soloist was Kennedy. Toward the end of the piece the solo violin plays a long solo line over the orchestra. Berg gradually adds more strings and more strings to play in unison with the soloist until the first and second violin sections joins in with the soloist. It was that visual element that is not apparent on recordings that made the entire piece click for me. Initially the violin solo is like a single human soul, gradually joined by the voices of all humanity experiencing the collective sense of mortality we all face, and shortly after that section concludes, and the orchestra fades away, the solo violin soars off, like a human soul, leaving the world behind on its journey into the ether.
My first Matthew Passion was Karajan haha! And yes, I DID manage to get through the whole thing, even as a youngster (or maybe BECAUSE I was a youngster and had a much higher threshold for pain than I do now)… Now the only aria I still listen to from that set is Gundula Janowitz’s very unique, ethereal, otherworldly, self-effacing Aus Liebe Will Mein Heiland Sterben. Not sure i’ve ever heard anything quite like it.
Great story -- I appreciate your talking about this issue.Speaking as a Christian minister (retired hospital chaplain), I think your childhood friend's mother was the real "Christ Killer" in the story. Second, St. Matthew Passion is way up on the top of my list of favorites; however, strangely to most folks, I'm not too fond of the words of the work myself, though this is not a problem since I don't know German. I just love most "sacred" music: I've been eavesdropping on several Cantors here on TH-cam during the High Holy Days. A belated Shanah Tova to you, sir.
Thank you!
For me, Jochum conducting Bruckner 5 with the Concertgebouw (the live version from the 80s). The piece suddenly came completely into focus for me!
The performance that change my perspective on the St. Matthew Passion was the Dunedin's 2008 release. They followed the not-so-popular OVPP approach, but hearing the choral parts stripped down and well-mic'd helped me take in all of the work's polyphonic richness. It's not even my favorite St. Matthew (that would be Pichon & Pygmalion), but it raised my expectations for choral clarity regardless of the numbers question.
Inspired choice for a series!!!
Dave, a similar event when I was 7 years old: Went to play at a school friend’s house. My friend came to the door and said, “My mother says we can’t play with you because you’re Jewish.” We lived in a small, Nazi-oriented, South African town. I cycled home; my dad said, “So soon?” I repeated verbatim what the cowardly mother had sent her child outside to tell me. My dad rapidly disappeared. An hour later he was back, and I played with my friend for many years - always accompanied by fear. This kind of event occurred many times in my childhood; in fact in my entire life of 81 years. I too love the St Matthew Passion and 99% of Bach’s works!
What a sad story from your youth. I have family members who still think that way. For that and other reasons I stopped talking to them some 25 years ago. No regrets. It's a pity Herreweghe doesn't do Bach as often as he used to. I was nearly in tears during a concert where he conducted BWV 146 (during the duet). They made a CD afterwards....without it. Asked why they said they didn't have the appropriate organ for the opening sinfonia. For me his recordings of Renaissance music and Bach are among the best in existence. I tried his Bruckner symphonies but found them less convincing.
I didn’t get the Rachmaninov Second Piano Sonata, not even with Horowitz, Van Cliburn, Ashkenazy, Weissenberg…etc, until I heard Kocsis. Now thanks to him I love the work. For me one of the greatest piano recordings ever.
No argument from me!
Try also Sergio Fiorentino
I really like Herreweghe’s recording of the Bach Magnificat for some of the reasons mentioned in this video: the lilt, the lightness, the musicality.
Another truly memorable talk, Dave. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for choosing to share it with us
Every year since Mengelberg there's a tradition in Amsterdam of playing Bach's St Matthew Passion as passion piece. It's one of the longest running traditions concerning classical music ever. So for me it's: Mengelberg - Concertgebouw - Bach's St Matthew Passion (performed on Palm Sunday 1939). No, I don't mind the "indulgent Romanticisms" nor that it's a (reduced) live performance version. The recording did hold my attention for the work eversince and that counts for me. But yes, Herreweghe is lovely too 🙂
Haitink's Concertgebouw Debussy was a revelation to me. I imprinted on the Daniel Barenboim DG recordings, which are in the worst tradition: slow tempi and vague, opaque textures (both performance and recording) to simulate an appearance of impressionism. The clarity and excitement of Haitink's performances were a real eye-opener. I reckon many people experienced the same with Martinon or Boulez.
Hmm, maybe that’s part of the reason Debussy bristled so much at the term “impressionism” applied to his music.
I have among my 48,500 LPs/78s/CDs about 2 dozen Haitink recordings and occasionally hear a very good performance from him. I do not prefer Barenboim the conductor and have kept zero of his recordings. I will now check out he Haitink Debussy on your recommendation. Thanks!
Yes, this is such a good concept for a new series of talks.
St. Matthew Passion, but with van Veldhoven/Netherlands Bach Society. Debussy Images and Stravinsky Rite of Spring (the Boulez/Cleveland recordings, now on Sony).
I had difficulty coming tp grips with the Elgar symphonies until I bought the Boult EMI stereo recordings and after that I was able to appreciate other recordings of both works
1. I’m sorry about your friend mom . Looks like you made it so thanks be to God :)
2. I’m Polish Catholic living in Canada the last 35 years . Trying to learn how to internalize the Passion of St Mathew by Bach .Specially now since we are in the middle of lent .
I guess when in trouble … some other Jew will help so here you are :) . Will try your advice !
Thank You and Shalom Dave !
Hello Dave.
I've been collecting since 1982, but found your corner of the Internet just last weekend. Since then I've been been consuming video after video. Your approach to criticism is so very seasoned, I absolutely love the way you give space and respect to other opinions, and how emphatically you stress our ultimate goal in listening -- pleasure! You are an amazing "talker", I cannot believe how easily and deftly you unfurl your narrative. Like in this video -- so very touching, giving a perspective I could never have imagined in a vacuum. Thank you for the vulnerability to tell us all. Related to the Passion, my first recording was Solti with Chicago, definitely not "authentic", but definitely musical. I really, really think that if you heard Sophie von Otter sing the alto arias, you'd change your mind about "Erbarme dich".
And I must also say, I think you incur a serious cost to your enjoyment of the cantatas by diligently ingesting the text, that of early 18th century Lutheranism. My answer to the equation has been that the lightness, transcendence, and joy I derive from the cantatas far outweigh whatever insights I might gain from following the text. I probably read the text once, got the gist, and kept it moving.
Anyway, best of luck in the future. You have a new fan!
Thank you.
For me, one of your most moving and enlightening reviews. I had a similar experience. Thank you.
my Matthäuspassion-moments: I didn't get the opening chorus until I heard McCreesh (I had already sung it then several times); I didn't get Erbarme dich until I heard Noskaiová with Kuijken. (I'd owned the Herreweghe recording for years before those.)
Speaking as a Christian, I don't know how any Christian could be anti-Semetic since all of the original apostles and Christ Himself were Jews. As for Bach, I've got to say I loved the St. M. Passion from the start, which I heard in my twenties. Now in my seventies, I still love it.
I thought that Vaughan Williams's 3 and 5 were just boring until I heard the RCA Previn recordings. It was partly the performances and partly the sound.
Previn's Third Vaughn Williams is sublime.....second in my mind to Boult EMI small dog box set version
This series is going to be 🔥
Mr.Hurwitz let me tell you you got the best ideas on this channel ♥️
I get them from you all!
@@DavesClassicalGuide you thief!😁
Speaking of Bach, I didn't really "get" the Cello Suites until I heard the Ralph Kirschbaum set on Virgin Classics. When I first came to these pieces, I think I bought into the idea that they were off limits to all but a handful of individuals who possessed the key to unlock the door to Bach's super-human genius. Every time I tried to listen to even one of the movements, I felt intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically unsuited to the task. But Kirschbaum's interpretations revealed a whole different side of the Suites, one that emphasized - and celebrated - their origins in dance and its connection to the dynamism of the human body. Thanks to Kirschbaum, the music moved from the head to the heart.
My Breakthrough was Franck's Symphonic Variations by Jean Yves Thibaudet and the Arnhem Philharmonic, during a live concert. Thibaudet played it with the French touch. It was great!
Hello Dave
I had problems coming to grips whith Shostakovich's symphonies no. 6 and 11. I owned the Haitink recordings of both and Bernstein's of no 6 (Sony)
Then I saw your talk about the Symphonies in question and it appeared that Paavo Berglund had the keys to open them.
Best wishes Fred from Kristianstad.
Thank You for another great Bach video, Dave! It is all the more remarkable that you can offer this recommendation of a Christian musical work after having experienced such horrible bigotry at such a young age.
I suppose it was horrible, but I wasn't traumatized as much as disgusted. I had my parents to thank for that.
I had a really incorrect impression of Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" for years - I had a Bohm recording with Vienna, I believe. That record made me think the piece was a turgid, stodgy bore - and a little bit forbidding. But I thought it was the piece that was the problem. Then, years later, I heard a broadcast performance by, believe it or not, Roger Norrington (I know, I know....) with the Boston Symphony, and because he didn't have a period instrument band, he allowed it to be played like the BSO would do it, but a little faster. The resulting performance was fleet and expressive and fresh and the complete polar opposite of Bohm's performance. I don't know if it was "correct" or not, but the music actually danced. It's the only way I can describe it. It made me realize all over again how wrong you can be about a piece all because of the not so hot performance you heard. Later, I picked up the Giulini recording - not as fast as Norrington, but much more lively than Bohm - and now when I listen to it, I actually enjoy the piece. Keep on listening, indeed.
It's a pleasure to listen to your videos...and yes...I'll continue listening....
Your video leads me to wonder more generally about works we respect, understand as great, but don't really like.
Thanks!
Thank you!
A lovely, honest, and moving statement. Very easy to relate to. Thank you so much.
Herreweghe is always a remarkable interpreter of Bach. And, very honestly, he said he is unable to interpret Handel or Vivaldi.
Sure. But he has no problem wrecking Beethoven.
Awesome story, Dave.
A great talk, Dave. I'm never very sure if it's simple repetition, or a particular performance/experience that can suddenly make a work make sense, but it's a real thing for me. I can sit and listen to a work and not understand a bloomin' bit of it, but on another occasion it will all become clear.
I don't really understand it, but simply trust that it's eventually going to happen. But perhaps not with the works of Boulez 😀.
I was hugely into Beethoven Symphonies, but for some reason I just couldn't connect to the 3rd symphony "Eroica". I knew I was SUPPOSED to be awestruck, but I just wasn't. I must have tried half a dozen conductors and I was starting to think it must just be me -- not sophisticated enough. THEN I heard Leonard Bernstein and the New York Phil. and THAT performance on Sony opened the entire world for me. I'm note sure why -- it is quite fast and energetic. Now I love the piece -- but still not every performance.
I collected versions for a while. It is one of the works with the most variation in performance length and changes in interpretation over the decades. My favorite versions are the Ton Koopmans ones which have a relentless drive and a sense of inevitability to them. But as far as Erbarme dich goes, it is the Tim Mead version on the All of Bach channel here on youtube.
Great idea! My first recording of SMP was the stultifying Karajan...purchased from that record club you wouldn't name in a previous video. That one is worth hearing for the all star cast of soloists, but oh...the work as a whole just put me off...until I heard this Herreweghe recording. So, we had a very similar experience.
Not so much a performance I heard but one I participated in: For a while I was unmoved by Peter Grimes. The structure didn’t work for me, and (recorded) productions I saw tried to do too much with it. But then I got to sing in the chorus when the St. Louis Symphony did a concert version of the whole opera in 2013 (under David Robertson), and it clicked. Not only that, but the fervor of the mob scene really drove home how intoxicating and dangerous riling up a posse can get.
Thanks for your interesting reviews and comments Dave. I came to love the StMP through an LP set by Karl Munchinger but when I acquired a CD set it was this one by Herreweghe which I still love and play (I am now 82). But I do have on CD Munchinger's Christmas Oratorio of similar vintage which I still love and play ("old -fashioned" though it may be).
I saw the Cleveland Orchestra and Bethlehem Bach Festival do St Matthew my sophomore and Junior years of college and sang it as a senior.
The first time I heard the “his blood be on his hands and on our children’s hands” chorus made the lightbulb go off for all the passive aggressive below the surface antisemitism I’d experienced.
As a budding Jewish professional fresh off my third working yontiff about to sing the whole damn thing, that Chorus was the line for me. I could do the lass ihn kreutzige choruses, but not that one so I just hummed it.
My choir director never said a peep. He got it. I was lucky enough to have someone who understood.
I like the second Herreweghe best, I like having Franz-Josef Selig singing Jesus and Scholl better than their counterparts on the earlier performance but the interpretation is great on the first one too, it’s all about which singers you like.
I finally listened to Klemperer all the way through and I’m glad I did. Peter Pears really makes that recording bearable, his story telling is so riveting and compelling and it gives a drive and direction that it needs for it to work.
I think all of us yiddin have that story at a young age where we had that rude awakening, thanks for sharing yours so that even those of us in our thirties feel a little bit less alone.
I had the exact same experience with the Klemperer version. Interminable then, and unlistenable now. I got Bach after hearing Leonhardt and Harnoncourt in their cantata series - can't remember what lead me back to the SMP, but probably Harnoncourt.
Yes, but I adore the Klemperer--it just wasn't my entree to the work.
Thanks so much for this video, which will get me to try our Herreweghe's first recording of the "St. Me Passion." Now, how about a video about Honegger's great oratorio, "King You"?
I didn’t get the Hammerklavier until I heard András Schiff’s recording. It’s not the only version I enjoy now, but at the time it was a breakthrough, especially the fugue.
So I guess I had a different but possibly related experience with this piece. Klemperer did in fact imprint on me and Elizabeth Schwarzkopf in particular. I mentioned my enjoyment of the piece and her singing to an older friend who happened to be Jewish. He didn't mention the words but did mention that Ms. Schwattzkopf had been a Nazi (or at least very tolerant of them). Always experience a bit of cognitive dissonance from enjoying some of these folks who were less than noble in their conduct during that regime.
Have always been resistant to the SMP for all the reasons you give. The antisemitism, so long, the Evangelist's unending recitatives, etc. I keep on thinking I will grow into it and attending performances but have never made it through to the end. I even left a Ravinia performance early after arriving an hour late. I was starting to maybe considering perhaps feeling differently after watching a TH-cam lecture on the piece last Spring. That opened my mind to beauties I hadn't appreciated. Now I've ordered a Herrweghe recording on your rec. Amazon has a 5 disc SMP and SJP (H's second SMP) for $16. Looking forward to enjoying.
A story from childhood: An great aunt told me that when her son was a child (we're all Jewish), the son and a Catholic friend asked whether it was true that the Jews had killed Christ. This would have been about 1925-1930. She answered "I didn't do it and Izzy didn't do it so don't worry."
I love “Storytime with uncle Dave”, or when David Hurwitz, in a way, becomes David Sedaris.
I had only heard key excerpts of the StMP until recently. I went to hear a full performance and, my goodness, it was long. I really didn't get on with the long passages of recitative which I found quite dull. The contrast struck me with Handel's Messiah which has a lots more variety - more choruses, more airs/arias, and only short recitatives. Or Bach's Mass in B mInor, a joy from start to finish.
Living in Belgium I get to see Herreweghe and the Collegium Vocale regularly. And they play the St Matthew Passion (or the St John Passion) almost every year around Easter. Nobody even gets close to their Bach.
A couple of years ago I heard them do Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Now, I already liked that, but his interpretation gave it a completely new meaning for me. Somehow he made this period performance sound fiercer than any I'd heard before. It was so direct and seemed to adress me personally. Quite an experience. And I hadn't expected it, for I'd heard a Beethoven 9 by him (with a traditional symphony orchestra) that didn't do it for me.
I still feel he's underrated as a conductor. Maybe he's too modest? His Mozart's good too. I heard him do the last three symphonies with the Staatskappelle Dresden, and I have his excellent recordings of them with his own Orchestre des Champs Elysées.
I learned to love St. Matthews Passion with Seiji Ozawa's recording. It has a good chorus, a superb orchestra (both japanese) and most of the Soloists are fine. And Ozawa't tempi seem right and fluent for me.
I had one of those Music I Just Didn't Get Until I Heard The Version By moments just yesterday. The piece was Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky. I had seen the movie many years ago when I was a grad student and really didn't care for it. Years ago, I purchased the Fritz Reiner recording as it was a favorite of the critics, and generally speaking, I'm a huge fan of Reiner's work in Chicago and the superb Layton/Mohr RCA recordings. (I think the Penguin Guide gave this Nevsky a rosette.) Quite often I will hear a recording of something and not really connect with it. That was not the case with this Reiner recording. I actively _detested_ this music. I think I listened to it three times before I was determined that I just really, REALLY didn't like this music.
Then, about three days ago, I saw one of your videos on LPs that you bought multiple times in case one of them wore out, got lost, etc., and you featured Abbado's LSO recording of Nevsky. I had heard an excerpt of that recording recently on another TH-cam video and it had intrigued me. I looked on Amazon after watching your video and found a cheap used copy. It arrived yesterday and I listened to it and it blew me away. What great music and what a great recording! I'm not sure why I dislike the Reiner so much; it might have to do with the fact that the lyrics are sung in English rather than the original Russian, but it just didn't work for me.
I love the St. Matthew Passion, including the Klemperer recording, but I'll look for the Herreweghe as I'm always interested in different interpretations.
I only got into the Bach Passions when I sang them in a choir. My favourite recordings (of both of them) are Karl Richter
Of standard repertory, one of the most difficult to grasp is Schubert's 9th - only when I stumbled across (very oddly) Adrian Boult's EMI version did it make ANY sense....
"of course I was rooting for the Jews" haha... you :) great one, thank you yet again.
I had the same experience, same recording. I had to come probably from even further away, I didn’t like Bach and I didn’t like singing. The 1984 Herreweghe recording is to my taste still the best.
My father heard that Jews and his family were "Christ-killers" through all of his Polish childhood until WWII. He often fought other children when they yelled at him. When he survived the Soviet Union and returned to his hometown Zamocz in 1945, the "Christian" people he knew said to him why didn't you die too, why did you return? The Poles stole all of my family's properties. Nazis first killed my uncle, the owner of the largest bank of Lublin to show the city their power. On the other hand, Pope John Paul II protected Jews and led to the modern thought and behavior towards Jews. His childhood Jewish friends and families were murdered by Nazis which further cemented his conciliatory attitude towards Jews. Our family always had good feelings about him, even when he was a young parish priest.
Thanks for sharing your personal experiences with antisemitism, as well as this recording. I just picked up an LP of Jochum’s St. Matthew Passion, do you have any thoughts on that particular recording?
I have talked about it before several times. I think it's wonderful.
@@DavesClassicalGuide thanks! I must have missed those videos, I will go back and find them.
Franck’s Symphony is one of those works that you’re supposed to acknowledge as one of the greats (at least that was the case growing up in the 60s!), but even after exposing myself to several performances, it still seemed like a bore… It was Stokowski’s recording that brought it to life for me.
Awesome. I may have mentioned that this is my dad’s favorite work of music (or so I think based on it being the single most collected work he owns that he also listens to regularly). But for me it’s always been as much a snooze as church itself (sorry, religious folks). But it’s Bach and I figure there must be a recording that will provide that a-ha for me, so I shall give this one a go. Thanks for this, Dave.
exactly the same -well, except for the Jewish part. It was easy for me to get into the Johannes (have always been an baroque music fan so the arias and stuff weren't an issue for me) but not the Matthäus that I had the misfortune of listening first from Klemperer, which I found very boring and killed it for me for many years, until I heard Herreweghe I
Oh my gosh, I am so sorry for that terrible story. Unfortunately those people are out there.
Still working on this work myself. Thanks for the advice. I also love stories about comical theological ingrates. As if Jesus dying of old age would have gotten the job done. Joseph Campbell was right to call Judas the midwife of salvation.
I never get Tristan und Isolde until I listened Barenboim Bayreuth 1995 with Sigfried Jerusalem and Waltraud Meier. Before, I listened what I lately realized were some of the worst existing versions (e.g. Levine Metropolitan, Solti). They were boring, contemplative and slugish. When I listened Barenboim version I discovered electricity, intensity and how passionate that music is. Afterthat, that work transformed me. I became a new person ... and Tristan und Isolde has become my most loved music work.
Very interesting story. I myself have always found the St. John more moving than the St. Matthew; partially because of early imprinting from when I sang it in chorus as a teenager. Decades ago I found a performance of it on an LP from Russia: the opening chorus was truly hair-raising. Unfortunately the LP was in terrible bad shape.
I’m still trying with Wagner, but it’s just not working at all. 25 minutes of any opera & boom 💥 headache. I’ve tried the bleeding chunks & they don’t work either. Anyone got any ideas or recordings ?
Solti's Rheingold? Kleiber's Tristan?
@@jeffheller642Tried both of those recordings. Thanks though jeff
I think Wagner is best experienced in the theater. The visual really helps fill in the gaps.
You have to start with opera highlights albums. And then go for the whole thing
Thanks for the replies much appreciated. Maybe it’s one of those things that will happen in the future.
I prefer St John Passion...for the simple reason that it's shorter.
Dave, I am presuming that you were 7 years old in second grade. That meant that your encounter with that idiotic anti-Semitic woman who kicked you out of her house and wouldn't let you use her phone to call your mother, occurred in 1968 - shockingly late for such behavior on her part. Did this happen while you were living in Connecticut, or were you still living in Delaware?
Milford, CT. And yes, I was 7. It's never too late to be an asshole.
Thank goodness you’re not Mel Gibson. I got to know about this Bach’s work through the film CASINO 🎰 by Martin Scorsese and it was one ☝️ of the greatest movie 🍿 openings I’ve ever seen. I watched it in Dubai in the Metropolitan Theater 🎭.
that was the final chorus that was used in the soundtrack at the beginning and the end of the film.
As a Christian pastor I am so sorry for the experience you had as a child. I am constantly amazed at the hatred and ignorance of people who call themselves Christian. Almost every character in the gospels was Jewish Of course, Jesus Himself, was a Torah observant Jew. Every book of the Bible, except Luke and Acts was written by a Jewish person. One of the main points of Matthew's gospel was to show the continuity of the gospel message with the Old Testament. Sorry about the lecture, but that kind of thing really pisses me off. Anyway, blessings on you and your family and thank you for all you do for the cause of classical music.
2nd grade wasn't the best.
I find it stupid to talk like that to anybody, but to speak/act that way to a child that is friends with your own child, and invited to your home to celebrate....and makes you sit outside and wait for your ride like trash waiting for pickup 😡
Unbelievable, inappropriate, low class, ignorant, and stupid!!!!!!!
Life goes on...Keep on listening 👍
You know, I had sort of the opposite kind of childhood from you because I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of Jews and most of the kids in the "Able Learner" classes I was in were Jewish so they were my friends and, as a Catholic, I always felt a little uncomfortable in their homes because I wasn't sure if their parents actually approved of their kids hanging around with a goy.
That’s what happens whenever you’re a minority.
Im in shock by the “Christ-killer” story….absolute madness…towards a CHILD. Crazy and cruel no doubt
As a teenager (1970s), my wife was told by a woman who, upon finding out that she was Jewish, was “so sorry that you killed our Lord.”
@@EnriqueHernandez-zk7qc Amazing also how often that antisemitic weirdos forget that their Lord was also a Jew!
@EnriqueHernandez-zk7qc Google no true Scotsman fallacy. The Christians of the early church who added the story of barabus certainly thought jews were christ killers.
Beeing old fashioned, I prefer above all St. Mt. Pss., the version by Klemperer
St. Matthew Passion was an instant favorite of mine, though I'm with you 100% it's painful hearing the anti-Semitic elements and thinking how much hatred and how many atrocities they've inspired. My introduction to the work was Herreweghe's second version, and I agree it's fantastic. I also like Rilling for someone who combines flowing tempos with modern instruments and female altos.
I never got Les contes d'Hoffmann when I first listened to the modern "authentic" versions with lots of extra stuff. To me it was a bloated, boring opera. Then I discovered the first Cluytens recording (1948) with the Theatre National de l'Opéra-Comique: it's fast, exciting, and the voices are light. Yes, the acts are in the wrong order, there are arias taken from other works... but I understood why this opera had remained popular.
In any case I want to hear "Antonia" as the last act. It's the story that moves me most and touches my heart. It was some reasonable tradition to put the love-affair of the sick girl at the end of the opera. When I listen to it, i always change the track order that way. Btw: give the Bonynge/Sutherland-Recording a chance...
@robertfontane442 It's got the finest music. Ending with the Venetian act is all right in theory---if Offenbach had actually lived to finish it.
I second your nomination of the Sutherland recording.
Wonderful story, thank you! Those period instruments do have gentler, even fuzzier sounds - in a good way - because they’re simply not as powerful and muscular as the modern versions! Comparing recordings is a bit misleading because they have to mix to a standard level. Heard live, period instruments are sonically weaker, which leaves a lot more room for texture and nuance.
Well, I disagree with that last sentence. How they are played matters far more than the actual instruments.
@@DavesClassicalGuide True enough. So I guess it’s the performance practice that’s behind the differences in both the instruments *and* the playing.
well, listen to the first Harnoncourt recordings (the Bach cantatas, or Vivaldi's seasons) and you would be excused if you thought that period string instruments are scratchy and the winds unable to produce a beautiful sound 😂
On a perhaps related note, you know doubt remember Richard Turaskin, a writer for the NY Times who clearly forgot more about music than I could hope to learn...
But still rubbed me the wrong way. Mostly it was his writing on Prokofiev.
Anyway, in one Sunday Arts Section piece, he stated Handel's Hallelujah Chorus is a celebration of the destruction of the Second Temple in Rome's Jewish War.
Did I read him right?
WAS HE RIGHT?
No, he wasn't right. Taruskin was a brilliant musicologist at UC Berkeley whose specialty was Russian music. He liked to be controversial, and some of his work outside of his area of concentration was sloppy.
Unfortunately I still care what 'those people' think. Much to my chagrin. But the good news is like you I've been able to let go of my Bach and Wagner anti-Semitic issues. Largely due to the recognition that all western culture is Christianity secular-humanized more or less.
I don't think that Bach was specifically antisemitic per se (at least, not more than the thousands of composers who put any version of the Passion into music) -Wagner is a more delicate case though, but in a totally different time and environment
O my god. To be treated that way as a young child by the adults in your world. How awful. (And yes, blaming the Jews for killing Christ completely destroys the Christian theology of Christ dying for all people's sins.)
This makes me understand how you could be put off by any of the passions (especially of the Gospel of John---uff).
I'm glad you could see through that cruelty to warm to Bach's St. Matthew Passion.
By the way, I hope your friend married his Jewish girlfriend and his awful mother has 5 Jewish grandchildren and 100 Jewish great-grandchildren.
I am a self-lacerating Lutheran. When I was a child I had to go to Stations of the Cross outside on Good Friday. Usually the weather was terrible and the service was loooong, plodding from one place to the next in the wind and the rain. I felt guilty for wishing Jesus to finally die already, but even when he says "It is finished," the service drags on and on. I definitely got the feeling on those days that we children were being punished for the sins of our fathers lol. I loved Bach's St. Matthew's Passion the first time I heard it, but that was in spite of my negative feelings about passion plays and Good Friday services. It felt wrong that the adults got so into the fake suffering---and some of them REALLY got into it---when they weren't actually undergoing crucifixion. It felt like a lie to me. Also, I couldn't stand crucifixion. Yeccch.
I love your critiques and use them to hunt for new performances. The performances are EVERYTHING. I never liked any if the popular Mozart pieces like Eine Kleine until i heard a good live performance and realized that the recordings I tried not to listen to had taken out the dynamics and the texture of Mozart's chamber music.
Growing up in Gibraltar in the 50s/60s with a Jewish dad who was evacuated for safety to Madeira by the Brits when WW2 broke out, we all knew that had the Germans won the war we'd have been in mortal danger, and that early postwar experience left me with a loathing for German (which I associated with the Nazis) and to a lesser extent Spanish (which I associated with Dictator Franco and refused to speak, opting for my mum's English). The upshot of which was that it wasn't until my 50s, when I started exploring Schubert's lieder, that my ancient loathing for German was transformed into a tentative liking! And of course the loathsome Christ-killer blood-libel which caused 2000 years of antisemitism was the result of devious Roman propaganda from the era of Constantine who, as the first Roman emperor to become Christian wanted rid of the inconvenient fact that the Romans had crucified Christ!
It's just waaaaaay too long. I doubt if the whole thing was performed during Bach's time, but feel free to correct me.
As an atheist I find most religious texts to be distasteful or just plain ridiculous. But I love so much religious music like Bach's St Mathew Passion. So my dilemma is how to reconcile words I find absurd with music I find profound. Fortunately I can mostly ignore the words but it still bothers me that I not only don't share the feelings that generated the music and which it is about but that I find those feelings completely unrelatable to me and, to put it bluntly, idiotic. Your story about your friend's mother is unbelievable. To say something like that to anyone is inexcusable but to attack a little kid of 7 years old like that is just ridiculous and unforgivable. Sorry you had to go through that Dave.
Christ killer????
Isn't it sad and pathetic that some people can get so worked up about something that is supposed to have happened two thousand years ago? (Assuming it really did.)