VoxCarnyx

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

BARITONE Roderick Williams, making a swift return to Scotland after featuring at the Lammermuir Festival, was the best-known name on stage for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s St Matthew Passion, but there were star voices everywhere on the platform, and magnificent instrumental performances to match them.

Williams, who sang Pilate, had his moments, notably the late Aria Mache dich, mein Herze, rein, giving voice to Joseph of Arimathea, but no more than others in this luxury line-up. Tenor Robert Murray combined with cellist Philip Higham, an oboe, two recorders and the chorus in a Part 1 highlight, while counter-tenor Tim Mead and soprano Hilary Cronin both had memorable solos – including the latter’s significant apocryphal intervention as Pilate’s wife – as well as duetting in counter-point to the chorus on So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen.

Gregory Batsleer’s SCO Chorus, split into two choirs, mirroring the division of the players below them, was not only as precise in its diction as the principals, but demonstrated a vast tonal range, whether standing and seated, to match the text. From its ranks Emily Kemp and Olivia Mackenzie Smith sang First and Second Maid, and bass Alex White was a step-out sensation as Judas, Peter and the High Priest. The addition of 14 youngsters from the choir of St Mary’s for some first half choruses was precision icing on the choral cake.

The role of Jesus was in the reliably capable hands of Matthew Brook, and his characterful singing of the words of the Last Supper and the plea to be spared the cup of suffering that swiftly follows was full of feeling. Likewise tenor Nick Pritchard’s Evangelist, especially impressive at the top of his range, was immaculately measured and increasingly animated as the familiar story unfolded.

It is a cliché to say that an inspired conductor can make early music sound as if the ink is still wet on the page, but Maxim Emelyanychev’s account of a work now approaching 300 years old really did seem box-fresh in the way its structure sparkled. His adventurous story-telling was edge-of-the-seat stuff.

In fact it is 290 years ago this year that the exquisite copy of the score that is the basis of reliable performances of Bach’s intentions was made. Those wishes have rarely been communicated to the audience as clearly as this conductor did in this performance. With the number of instruments carefully calibrated to maintain an ideal balance, from the Grand Circle of the Usher Hall it was like watching a perfectly-engineered machine in lubricated motion as the two orchestras, two choirs and mobile soloists found the perfect place and poise to make their point.

Both orchestra leader Stephanie Gonley and fellow violinist Marcus Barcham-Stevens had fine solos, the latter also directing his half of the musicians while Emelyanychev was busy at the harpsichord. The instrumental music was full of details like that, in the variations in the range of the wind accompaniment, continuo playing that combined cellos and basses – so warm-toned on gut strings – and the featuring of Alison McGillivray’s viola da gamba.

For all its majesty, Bach’s Matthew Passion can sometime make one pine for the composer’s briefer treatment of the Gospel of John. This one, repeated the following evening at Glasgow City Halls, flew by.

Keith Bruce