Ex Cathedra
Jeffrey Skidmore

JS Bach
St Matthew Passion

2 CD album

ORC 100007

Release Date: November 2009

£25.00
(postage & packaging included)



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BBC Music Magazine

Johann Sebastian Bach
St Matthew Passion, BWV244

Ex Cathedra Choir & Baroque Orchestra, Jeffrey Skidmore



SYNOPSIS

For their first release on Orchid Classics, Ex Cathedra present a brand new recording of the St. Matthew Passion, recorded live in Symphony Hall, Birmingham on Good Friday 2009.

Sung in English using a totally new translation of the original German text, and performed with the Ex Cathedra Baroque Orchestra, this is a unique combination. Fitting onto two very well filled discs with a 32 page booklet with full texts and at a very competitive price.

From its home in Birmingham, Ex Cathedra has established an international reputation as a leading UK choir and Early Music ensemble. Under founder and Artistic Director Jeffrey Skidmore, Ex Cathedra is known for its vibrant performances and a passion for seeking out not only the best but the unfamiliar and the unexpected in the choral repertoire. Ex Cathedra celebrate their 40th Anniversary in 2009 and this will be highlighted in articles about them and interviews with Jeffrey Skidmore, in the music press.

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ST MATTHEW PASSION

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is the most revered European composer of all time. Since the 18^th century he has been praised by the leading composers from Mozart to Wagner, Haydn to Schoenberg, and a host of contemporary musicians. St Matthew Passion is his most extended work and is supremely rewarding to study, rehearse and perform. The work brings together Bach's many fine musical qualities. It is a musical icon for the Christian world but at the same time expresses feelings common to the whole of humanity. The world currently seems to be searching for spiritual meaning and significance. It can surely be found in this music which has the potential for universal appeal and is an uplifting and inspiring example of what Man can achieve. It portays an extraordinary range of feelings: love, treachery, anger, injustice, sacrifice, betrayal, suffering, remorse, cruelty, helplessness and shame. All are consistently sustained and expressed in the most sublime and emotionally charged music imaginable.

St Matthew Passion is a complex work lasting from just under three hours to almost four depending on your preferred approach! It demands our full attention, and appreciation grows with every hearing. It is Bach's largest score, calling for two four-part choirs, two orchestras of strings, with viola da gamba, and double-woodwind with flutes doubling recorders and the oboes doubling oboe d'amore and oboe da caccia, two continuo groups, a "ripieno" choir, and two choirs of expert soloists to represent the twelve named characters and who also sing songs reflecting on the action. Bach, with his extraordinary imagination, explores every musical possibility in this luxurious set-up.

The use of contemporary dance forms provides momentum and keeps our feet on the ground. The opening, melancholic but insistent siciliano invites the gathering crowd to witness the action; a passionate sarabande sensuously expresses the personal loss of a loved one at the beginning of the second part; and the flowing rondeau of the final chorus perfectly captures the flowing tears and optimistic anxiety that suggests this is not the end: a bitter-sweet conclusion to a monumental masterpiece!

Appreciation does not always come easily, but some movements have immediate impact, including the three magnificent and colossal framing choruses, the numerous dialogue movements in which soloists from Choir I interact with Choir II, and the scathing mockery of dramatic double-choir crowd interjections. The spine-chilling sparseness of the choral exclamation 'Barabbas', stripped of its orchestral support, and the short, achingly beautiful setting of 'Truly, this was the Son of God' also command our immediate response.

The chorale settings are placed at significant moments in the story and are poignant, personalised moments of involvement. There are five different harmonisations of the so-called "Passion" chorale which are performed here by the whole company.

The story is delivered in an expressive form of recitative by the Evangelist, who has many wonderful moments. He introduces the words of Jesus, whose music is highlighted by an accompaniment of strings, and the other characters, who sing short phrases which are some of Bach's most perceptive invention.

The solo arias are mostly operatic in conception and are meditations on the action. Time seems to stand still, giving us opportunity to reflect on what has happened. These sections are often more demanding and searchingly challenging. Some can also make a life-changing first impression. I can clearly remember the performances in Birmingham Town Hall which I heard as a young teenager in the early 1960s. John Georgiadis' exquisite violin solo in 'Have mercy, Lord' and John Shirley-Quirk's majestic rendition of the final bass solo 'Cleanse yourself, my heart' stand out in my memory. It has taken longer to come to terms with other arias, but understanding grows with every listening and every performance.

St Matthew Passion was composed in the 1720s and first performed in1727. A further performance of this early version was given in 1729. A later version, the one with which we are familiar today, was given in 1736 and again in the 1740s. A beautiful score and parts have survived from this later version and the material provides valuable insight into performance practice. All singers and players performed from part-books, which contained only their single line of music. The Evangelist and Jesus were clearly expected to sing their part and choruses and arias in Choir I. Other solo parts are linked with a specific choir and the soloists also performed duties in their respective choirs. There were separate part-books for the two maids, Pilate's Wife, the two priests, Caiaphas, Judas, Peter and Pilate. This was clearly part of Bach's dramatic design.

In Bach's day the Passion story was performed liturgically as part of Vespers on Good Friday, after a period of musical abstinence during Lent. Three of his settings of the crucifixion story survive and he had in his possession Handel's Brockes Passion and several anonymous settings. Performances alternated annually between St Nicholas' Church and St Thomas'. The contemporary Lutheran response in Leipzig was, however, not always favourable, and Bach's Passion music was criticised at that time for its complexity, length and theatricality. The service began at 1.45pm and, in addition to the two parts of the Passion story separated by a sermon, it included three hymns, a motet, prayers and a biblical reading!


OUR APPROACH

In recent years Ex Cathedra has established a reputation for what is now perhaps sensitively called "historically informed performance practice". It has never been our intention, however, to seek the "virtual reality" of a reconstruction, and, interesting as that process may be, it seems to me that music has to be for our time and that to simply travel back in time is to observe history and not necessarily understand it. The sound picture of this performance is from the eighteenth century with the use of period instruments, low pitch, and two small choirs with soloists stepping out from each choir. However, there is no attempt to reconstruct Bach's first performance. For example, he almost certainly used fewer singers, they were all male, and most were even younger than the members of Ex Cathedra. His performance was in a church and we had the perfect acoustic and comfort of Symphony Hall, one of the world's great concert halls. And of course his singers sang in their own language to a congregation who spoke the same language and were steeped in the melodic and linguistic imagery of that time. We can only hear it with the ears, mind, and heart of a twenty-first century listener.

There have been several distinguished recordings of Bach's St Matthew Passion in English: Koussevitsky (1937), Bernstein (1962) and Willcocks (1979). This recording is of a live performance given by Ex Cathedra in Symphony Hall, Birmingham, on Good Friday 2009.

We have used a recently created translation by Nicholas Fisher and John Russell. Nicholas Fisher is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, University of London, and a life member and former chair of Birmingham Bach Choir. John Russell, a member of Birmingham Bach Choir for many years, is a retired parish priest with long-standing links to the German Lutheran Church. Their aim was to use language close to that currently spoken, believing this would more effectively communicate the Passion narrative. Their work has been highly praised by many, including John Butt, a well-known Bach Scholar and writer, distinguished performer and interpreter, and Professor of Music at the University of Glasgow:

Any translation of Bach's St Matthew Passion has to address three challenges simultaneously: to preserve as much as possible of the sense and meaning of the original words; to fit the shapes and nuances of Bach's musical lines; and, most importantly of all, to speak to modern audiences with an immediacy and expressiveness that matches the way the text would have worked in Bach's Leipzig. This new translation manages to balance these three tasks in a remarkable way, resulting in a text that sounds contemporary yet poetic enough to match some of the most powerful music ever written.

The path Ex Cathedra has trodden to this performance has been particularly interesting, involving many local links over a long period of time.

We have performed St Matthew Passion, almost always in English, throughout our 40-year history, previously using Edward Elgar's 1911 translation made in collaboration with Worcester Cathedral Organist Ivor Atkins. Elgar was Peyton Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham and with Atkins sought to champion 'the noblest of sacred works' hoping for it to be, one day, as popular as Messiah and Elijah. Elgar is a local hero and this recording coincides with a time in which Ex Cathedra is exploring a "period" interpretation of The Dream of Gerontius. (When Julius Buths conducted the successful German premiere of Gerontius in December 1901, it was performed in his own fine translation which, according to the Düsseldorf press 'satisfies musical aims and at the same time remains stylistically pure and in understandable German.)

The recording also follows hot on the heels of our reconstruction of Mendelssohn's first version of Elijah, which was premiered in Birmingham Town Hall in 1846. Elijah was originally conceived in German and the composer's detailed and agonised correspondence with William Bartholomew, the English librettist and collaborator for the English first performance, proved to be a fascinating and inspiring study. It confirmed that performance in translation was desirable, necessary, and a constantly evolving process. Like Mendelssohn we were experimenting, up to the final moment, with new ideas for our performance of St Matthew Passion, changing Bach's rhythms, underlay and instrumental articulation, when absolutely necessary, to work with the new language. Mendelssohn's crucial role in the revival of St Matthew Passion in 1829 is well documented.

Ex Cathedra is a unique community of musicians which has evolved over its 40-year life-time, absorbing the generous influence and inspiration of many distinguished singers and players along the way.

In the early years "modern" leaders included Felix Kok and Paul Willey from CBSO and Louis Carus, Principal of Birmingham Conservatoire. "Period" players John Holloway, Richard Gwilt, Margaret Faultless and Nicolette Moonen took us in new directions and Micaela Comberti led the Ex Cathedra Baroque Orchestra for almost twenty years before her untimely death in 2003. Mica played in Ex Cathedra's first ever period instrument performance in 1983. Mica was an influential member of The English Concert, the Salomon Quartet and Collegium 90. The Ex Cathedra Baroque Orchestra is a blend of leading players who have supported our work over many years, and young players who are clearly the talent of the future.

Ex Cathedra has always encouraged young singers. Many have gone on to 'stardom' and the current crop is as good as ever. We have some of the best young soloists around; they are regular singers with Ex Cathedra and they sing from within the choir, which is a unique blend of professional, professionally-trained amateur and student musicians. We also link with our two academies who provide the 'ripieno' choir and are given an enhanced role to involve them in the whole work. This is not historically significant but enables us to perform this wonderful and special work as a musical family with stylistic and emotional consistency. I should like to think Bach might enjoy the approach and the performance.

© Jeffrey Skidmore, 2009


This recording is dedicated to Micaela Comberti (1952-2003) who led the Ex Cathedra Baroque Orchestra for almost twenty years. No-one who heard it will ever forget her exquisite solo in 'Erbarme dich'. She was a beautiful player and made the sweetest sound. Mica was a wonderful colleague and a true friend. She praised and she criticised, and was truly inspirational. Five players on this recording are recent graduates of Birmingham Conservatoire, where she taught for many years. We still miss her.

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BIOGRAPHIES

From its home in Birmingham, Ex Cathedra has established an international reputation as a leading UK choir and Early Music ensemble.

Under founder and Artistic Director Jeffrey Skidmore, Ex Cathedra is known for its vibrant performances and a passion for seeking out not only the best but the unfamiliar and the unexpected in the choral repertoire.

Since its formation in 1969, Ex Cathedra has grown into a unique musical resource, comprising specialist choir, vocal consort of 8-12 voices, period-instrument orchestra and thriving education programme.

Recent years have seen a major increase in Ex Cathedra's national and international reputation thanks to its trail-blazing performances of Early Music “ in particular the French and Latin American Baroque “ and its role as a leading exponent of choral training and vocal skills education.

Ex Cathedra presents its own subscription season of concerts “ which spans music from the fifteenth to twenty-first centuries “ in the West Midlands and London, and is an Associate Artist at Town Hall, Birmingham.

The group is also delighted to receive invitations to appear at festivals and concert series across the UK and Europe. Performances have included the Aldeburgh, Aranjuez, Canterbury, Chelsea, Chichester, Kilkenny, Lichfield, Lufthansa, Newbury Spring, Poissy, Santiago de Compostela, Salisbury, Stratford, St David's and Three Choirs festivals.

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Jeffrey Skidmore is one of the country's foremost choral conductors and is highly regarded by instrumentalists, singers and audiences for his thoroughly researched and carefully crafted programmes and the high quality of his performances.

He read music at Magdalen College, Oxford, before returning to his native Birmingham to develop Ex Cathedra into the internationally-acclaimed choral group it has become today.

Directing Ex Cathedra, Jeffrey has appeared in concert series and festivals across the UK and abroad and made a dozen highly-acclaimed recordings. He has worked with a number of other ensembles, including the CBSO, the OAE, and the BBC Singers.

In recent years Jeffrey has conducted many world premieres and commissioned new work from a wide range of established and new, young composers, such as Hutchins, Jackson, Joubert, Roth, Runswick, Sculthorpe, Shepherd, Wiegold and Williams.

Jeffrey is a pioneer in the field of research and performance of neglected choral works of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and has won wide acclaim with Ex Cathedra, in particular for his recordings of French and Latin American Baroque music. An Honorary Fellow at Birmingham Conservatoire and a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, he has prepared new performing editions of works by Araujo, Charpentier, Lalande, Monteverdi and Rameau.

Jeffrey is Artistic Director of the Early Music Programme at Birmingham Conservatoire and Director of Ex Cathedra's wide-reaching and innovative education programme. He frequently gives choral training workshops and teaches at summer schools in the UK and overseas. He has regularly directed the choral programme at Dartington International Summer School and was Classical Music Programmer for the 2005 Kilkenny Festival.

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Grace Davidson gained her BMus and postgraduate degrees at the Royal Academy of Music. While she was there she won the Early Music Prize and was a finalist in the London Handel Singing Competition.

Having been greatly in demand as a consort singer with all the UK's leading ensembles, Grace is fast becoming a popular soloist, specialising in the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Grace also appears regularly with the saxophonist Christian Forshaw.

Performances include the Angel in Handel's Jeptha with the Leipzig Radiophilharmonie conducted by Andrew Manze; Monteverdi's Vespers with Harry Christophers and Edward Higginbottom; Purcell's Fairy Queen arias at Edinburgh Festival with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen; arias by Handel with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and Handel's Messiah with The Sixteen. Her solo album 'A Portrait' with Fiori Musicali has been released recently.

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Since leaving the Royal Northern College of Music in 1992 Mark Chambers has performed all over the world with many leading groups and conductors.

Solo work has included Bach St Matthew Passion and Mass in B Minor with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 with Paul McCreesh.

Operatic roles have included: Arsamenes (Xerxes), Narciso (Agrippina), Dardano (Amadigi), Andronico (Tamerlano), Speranza (Monteverdi Orfeo), Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas €“ Jonathan Miller production), and Orfeo (Gluck Orfeo ed Euridice).

Mark currently lives in Buncrana, Co. Donegal and combines his singing career with a post as part time lecturer in Voice at the University of Ulster in Derry. He was a member of the creative team behind the City of Song Festival in Derry.

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Jeremy Budd is a former Head Chorister of St Paul's Cathedral. As a treble soloist he performed extensively both at home and abroad, including performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Recordings include 'Hear My Prayer' with St Paul's Cathedral Choir, 'A Play of Passion' with Michael Chance and Fretwork, and Paul McCartney's 'Liverpool Oratorio' with Carl Davis.

Jeremy is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music. He performs regularly with many of the UK's leading choirs, including The Monteverdi Choir, the Gabrieli Consort, The King's Consort, European Voices, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Choir of the Age of Enlightenment, The Cardinals Musick, Ex Cathedra, Tenebrae, and is a full time member of The Sixteen.

Jeremy made his London debut as a tenor in 2000 singing Pilatus in Arvo Part's Passio in Westminster Cathedral, and has since made regular appearances on the concert platform. In 2008 Jeremy made his solo Proms debut in Bach's St John Passion (arias) with Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

Operatic engagements include a fully-staged St John Passion in Paris and Orfeo in Lille with Emmanuelle Haim, Flying Dutchman at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Chabrier's L'Etoile at the Opera Comique in Paris with Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

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Eamonn Dougan read music at New College, Oxford, before continuing his vocal and conducting studies at the Guildhall school of Music and Drama.

He has sung with the Academy of Ancient Music, The Hanover Band, the CBSO and the Orchestra of The Sixteen under conductors including Edward Higginbottom, Nicholas Kramer, Jeffrey Skidmore and Harry Christophers. His solo recordings include St John Passion and Messiah, both for Naxos, Brahms Requiem and motets by Giovanni Grillo with His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts. He is a member of the renowned vocal ensembles The Sixteen and I Fagiolini and has appeared on disc and the concert platform throughout the world with many groups including the Gabrieli Consort, Ex Cathedra, The Cardinall's Musick and The Monteverdi Choir.

In 2006 Eamonn was appointed the first assistant conductor of The Sixteen. He has since directed the ensemble to considerable acclaim in concerts across England and Europe including his debut at the Concertgebouw, Holland and his debut with the Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir, Poland. He is increasingly in demand as a guest conductor and choral coach and is a visiting professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London where he directs the Guildhall Consort.

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Born and raised in Canada, Greg Skidmore was a transfer student at Royal Holloway College, University of London, from which he graduated in June 2005 with a First Class Hons BMus. Greg was a post-graduate Choral Scholar at Wells Cathedral in 2005-2006 and a Lay Clerk at Gloucester Cathedral in 2006-2007. He is currently a Lay Clerk at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford.

Solo engagements have included St Matthew Passion and St John Passion with Ex Cathedra; Stravinsky's Canticum Sacrum; the Brahms, Faure, Mozart, and Durufle Requiems, Monterverdi's 1610 Vespers, and Vaughan Williams' Five Mystical Songs. His professional choral and consort work has included engagements with I Fagiolini, Tenebrae, the Gabrieli Consort, Ex Cathedra, Cappella Nova, A Cappella Portuguesa, Chapelle du Roi, Cappella Amsterdam, La Grand Chapelle (Madrid), Currende (Antwerp), and the Tafelmusik Baroque Chamber Choir (Toronto).

Greg has also worked with the choirs of Westminster Abbey, St Paul's and Winchester cathedrals, and St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. In Oxford, Greg combines his Layclerkship with doctoral research in musicology at Oxford University. A Clarendon Scholar, he studies royal music library formation and printed music distribution in early 17^th century Portugal.

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Natalie Clifton-Griffith was born in Cornwall and studied at Birmingham Conservatoire and the Royal College of Music. She has been a prize winner at Great Elm and the first London Handel Singing Competition (2002).

Highlights of her career include Bach's Magnificat (Barbican Hall, ECO), St John Passion and Cantata 82a (The Hanover Band), Mass in B Minor (Lyon Early Music Festival), Cantata 209 Non sa che sia dolore (Purcell Room), and Handel's Messiah at most major cathedrals in England, Apollo e Dafne and Alexander Balus (London Handel Festival). Classical repertoire includes Haydn's Creation (Bath Abbey), Nelson Mass (Lichfield Cathedral), Missa Sancti Nicholai, Salve Regina and Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate (CBSO Symphony Hall and English Haydn Festival) and Mass in C Minor (ECO).

Natalie appears regularly as a soloist with Ex Cathedra and The English Concert both on CD and the concert platform.

Other concert engagements have included Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream (CBSO), Canteloube's Chants D'Auvergne, Villa Lobos Bachianas Brazilieras V, Paul Spicer's Easter Oratorio (ESO), John Joubert's Wings of Faith (CBSO) Orff's Carmina Burana (Birmingham Royal Ballet and English Symphony Orchestra) and Mater Gloriosa in Mahler's Symphony No.8 (Symphony Hall).

Operatic roles include Timea (La Liberta Contenta), Venus (Venus and Adonis), Despina (Cosi fan Tutte), Queen of Night ( Magic Flute) and Princesse (L'Enfant et les Sortilleges).

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Matthew Venner began his singing career as a Chorister at Westminster Abbey and, following a Music Scholarship at Bedford School, went on to become a Choral Scholar at New College, Oxford. Since leaving University, he has pursued a busy freelance career of oratorio, consort and recital work.

Matthew is gaining a reputation as an accomplished soloist. Concerts have included Bach's St John Passion with the London Mozart Players and Handel's Messiah with the City of London Sinfonia, both at St Paul's Cathedral; Stravinsky's Mass and Requiem Canticles with the CBSO at Birmingham Symphony Hall; Handel's Israel in Egypt at the Brighton Early Music Festival; Bernstein's Chichester Psalms in Birmingham Town Hall; J.C. Bach's lament, Ach, dass ich Wassers g'nug hätte, with Fretwork and the premier of John Joubert's oratorio Wings of Faith at the Birmingham Oratory.

Matthew has also sung with many of today's leading vocal ensembles including The Cardinall's Musick, Ex Cathedra, The Monteverdi Choir, The Sixteen and The Tallis Scholars. He is an Assistant Vicar Choral at St Paul's Cathedral, London and is also a member of the Orlando Consort, an ensemble specialising in medieval and early renaissance music.

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Christopher Watson studied music at Exeter University, and went on to hold lay clerkships at Durham, Oxford and Westminster Cathedrals. He now lives in Oxford and divides his time between solo and consort work.

Concert performances have included Pilate in Arvo Part's Passio in Gloucester Cathedral, and Purcell's Ode for St Cecilia in Beaune and Amsterdam with the Gabrieli Consort, the first performance of The Stones of the Arch by Gavin Bryars with the Kronos Quartet, and a European tour of Lassus's Lagrime di San Pietro with Philippe Herreweghe. He has made more than 50 recordings, most recently the Bach Motets with Sette Voce in Germany and the complete Cantiones Sacrae of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd with Alamire.

Christopher is a member of Tenebrae, Alamire, The Clerks' Group and The Binchois Consort. He sings regularly with Polyphony, the Gabrieli Consort, Theatre of Voices, the Soloists of Collegium Vocale Gent and the Netherlands Bach Society, and has made more than 150 appearances with The Tallis Scholars.

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James Birchall began his musical education as a chorister at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. He was then a music scholar at Winchester College and a choral scholar at St John's College, Cambridge. James is currently studying with Ryland Davies and Jonathan Papp at the Royal Academy of Music.

James has sung many of the major oratorio roles, notably Handel's Messiah and Beethoven's Choral Symphony, both with the CBSO in Symphony Hall, Birmingham. He has also performed Messiah in Gloucester, Worcester and Hereford Cathedrals, St John Passion in Chichester Cathedral with The Hanover Band and Charles Wood's St Mark Passion in Cambridge for BBC Radio 3, which he has also recently recorded for Naxos.

James made his operatic debut in 2004 as Swallow (Peter Grimes) with Cambridge University Opera Society. Other roles have included Mephistopheles (Faust) for Kennet Opera and title role Don Giovanni, Antinoo (Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria), Capulet ( Romeo et Juliette) and Peters (L'Etoile du Nord) at the RAM.

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