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JS Bach: St Matthew Passion
Benjamin Bruns (Evangelist), Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Aki Matsui (soprano), Damien Guillon (counter-tenor), Clint van der Linde (baritone), Makato Sakurada (tenor), Zachary Wilder (tenor), Christian Immler (baritone), Toru Kaku (bass), Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki
Awards:
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Gramophone Magazine, April 2020, Recording of the Month
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Gramophone Awards, 2020, Winner - Choral
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Building a Library, October 2022, Recommended Recording
It’s fascinating how much his two recordings have in common…what principally differentiates the two sets are the solo singers…Benjamin Bruns’s Evangelist and Christian Immler’s Christus are...
JS Bach: St Matthew Passion
Benjamin Bruns (Evangelist), Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Aki Matsui (soprano), Damien Guillon (counter-tenor), Clint van der Linde (baritone), Makato Sakurada (tenor), Zachary Wilder (tenor), Christian Immler (baritone), Toru Kaku (bass), Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki
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Awards:
-
Gramophone Magazine, April 2020, Recording of the Month
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Gramophone Awards, 2020, Winner - Choral
-
Building a Library, October 2022, Recommended Recording
It’s fascinating how much his two recordings have in common…what principally differentiates the two sets are the solo singers…Benjamin Bruns’s Evangelist and Christian Immler’s Christus are...
About
Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan made their first recording of the St Matthew Passion in March 1999. Twenty years later, in April 2019, it was time once again, as the singers and players gathered in the concert hall of the Saitama Arts Theater in Japan. ‘A profound joy’ is how Masaaki Suzuki describes his emotion at the opportunity to record Bach’s great fresco of Christ’s Passion for a second time. And this time, he and his ensemble have brought with them into the concert hall a profound and collective familiarity with Bach’s choral music, after having recorded more or less all of it in the meantime, including the complete sacred cantatas. For his Evangelist, Suzuki has selected the young German tenor Benjamin Bruns, making his first appearance on BIS. Among the other soloists are familiar names including Carolyn Sampson, Damien Guillon, Makoto Sakurada and Christian Immler.
Contents and tracklist
- Benjamin Bruns (tenor), Christian Immler (bass), Damien Guillon (alto), Toru Kaku (bass), Aki Matsui (soprano), Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Yusuke Watanabe (bass), Makoto Sakurada (tenor), Hiroya Aoki (bass), Eri Sawae (soprano), Yosuke Taniguchi (bass), Kozue Shimizu (soprano), Zachary Wilder (tenor), Clint van der Linde, Minae Fujisaki
- Bach Collegium Japan
- Masaaki Suzuki
Spotlight on this release
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Awards and reviews
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Gramophone MagazineApril 2020Recording of the Month
April 2020
It’s fascinating how much his two recordings have in common…what principally differentiates the two sets are the solo singers…Benjamin Bruns’s Evangelist and Christian Immler’s Christus are compelling, Carolyn Sampson floats a gloriously gravity-free ‘Aus liebe’ and Immler’s burnished ‘Kom süsses Kreuz’ is eloquently embellished with Jerôme Hantaī’s soulful gamba. If the opening chorus doesn’t quite set us up for the enormity of what is to come, what lies beyond is not without some cherishable compensations.
April 2020
The lingua franca of this recording is Suzuki’s incessantly perceptive blend of directly projected imagery and inward devotion, underpinned by theatrical fervour in the narrative; one never doubts Bach or Suzuki’s belief in its importance for mankind. The musicians convey it with infectious zeal...Generic early music politesse is relegated to the shadows.
15th March 2020
After recording all of Bach’s choral works, Suzuki’s Bach is a byword for quality. He also has native German speakers, Benjamin Bruns and Christian Immler, in the leading “roles”, and there’s excellent work from Carolyn Sampson (Aus Liebe) and Clint van der Linde (Erbarme Dich).