Bach Musica at Holy Trinity Cathedral

By WILLIAM DART


The Crucifixion has had a lot of press lately, thanks to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, although this gory, opportunistic piece of celluloid is light years away from the testament of faith that Bach laid out around the Easter story in his St Matthew Passion.

A year ago the Auckland Choral Society launched its season with this huge choral work in the Holy Trinity Cathedral; on Sunday Rita Paczian and her Bach Musica assembled in the same venue to reveal the secrets of this mighty score.

Paczian knows the work and her choir very well indeed and it showed. One felt the emotional weight of every individual chorale as they charted the Passiontide drama. These ranged from glorious, full-throated outburst to the chilling reflection of the final unaccompanied Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden.

There was exquisite nuancing from the singers and, when the drama intensified, Bach's choral fragments flew back and forth with some fury.

In the great final chorus, famously used by Scorsese in his 1995 film Casino, spiritual resolution was presented with heartrending fervour.

David Hamilton's Evangelist was perfection, even more effective in the original German than he was in English translation last year.

His recitative commentary proved effortlessly natural, catching the import of every word and phrase, from early on when it's apparent that the priests are plotting to have Jesus slain.

As Jesus, Ian Campbell did not quite achieve the composure and serenity required, with the singer seeming ill at ease in his lower register. Singing against some acerbic instrumental intonation (the strings had some alarming moments during the evening) may well have been a distraction.

Of the other four soloists, Shelagh Molyneux was most convincing, although her lower register, too, did not always project through the orchestra.

Morag Atchison's clear, accurate soprano could have surrendered more to the journey that Bach's lines were offering while tenor Richard Phillips had a few moments of what sounded like cold panic. Bass David Griffiths, occasionally omitting notes that were out of reach, including one crucial Tod, was not at his most focused vocally.