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The Review - MUSIC - Classical & Jazz with TONY KIELY
Published: 20 March 2008

Bach in dramatic style

REVIEW: ST MATTHEW PASSION
ST JOHN'S SMITH SQUARE

JS Bach wrote the St Matthew Passion in 1729 and made a fair copy which was left to his son Carl Phillippe Emmanuel who never used it.
Almost 100 years later, two students at the Berlin Academy of Music, one of whom was Felix Mendelssohn, persuaded their professor to help them put on a performance using this copy. It was rapturously received.
Some 170 or so years later a professor at the Royal College of Music also rose to a challenge by a student and produced “an English version of the St Matthew Passion text to fit exactly Bach’s original notation”.
The Reverend Lyndon van der Pump, for this was he, retired from teaching singing in 1994 to become an Anglican priest, and served as vicar of St Mary’s Primrose Hill, until 2004. So this was very much a Camden occasion, with the Camden Choir performing this new translation by a Camden cleric.
There were some wonderful moments, such as the lightning and thunders, which used to be “fury forgotten,” but now are “from vengeance recoiling” and the moment of silence in the middle was amazingly dramatic. The performance emphasised the drama of the story, with Richard Edgar-Wilson as the Evangelist an impressive story teller.
The double choir managed to depict loving disciples and howling mob as necessary. Dividing the orchestra made a dramatic impact when the soloists were accompanied by the instrumentalists on the opposite side of the podium, achieving near perfect balance.
Conductor Julian Williamson guided the choirs and orchestras with impeccable timing, and did more than justice to this marvellous piece.
SARAH DAWES

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