JS Bach - St John Passion
£20.85
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Label: Harmonia Mundi
Cat No: HMM90277475
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 2
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 20th March 2026
Contents
Artists
Julian Pregardien (tenor)Huw Montague Rendall (baritone)
Ying Fang (soprano)
Lucile Richardot (mezzo-soprano)
Laurence Kilsby (tenor)
Christian Immler (bass-baritone)
Etienne Bazola (baritone)
Pygmalion
Conductor
Raphael PichonWorks
St John Passion, BWV245Artists
Julian Pregardien (tenor)Huw Montague Rendall (baritone)
Ying Fang (soprano)
Lucile Richardot (mezzo-soprano)
Laurence Kilsby (tenor)
Christian Immler (bass-baritone)
Etienne Bazola (baritone)
Pygmalion
Conductor
Raphael PichonAbout
The superlative Pygmalion chorus are at the centre of this new recording of the St John Passion. Their striking presence radiates throughout the work, their exemplary articulation and collective energy moulding the drama and carrying its emotional charge. Raphaël Pichon’s flexible yet precise direction restores its original dramatic arc, instilling the peerless team of soloists with the same demandingly high standards of musical narrative and truth. This Passion wins out through its clarity of gesture and compellingly forceful actualisation.
In his St John Passion Bach deployed an unprecedentedly forceful kind of story-telling, a unique fusion of narration and contemplation, drama and exegesis, the past set alongside the present. No passive message here: the work takes the audience to task, drawing them in and integrating them in the narrative. By regularly halting the drama to explore its meaning, Bach forces us to listen actively, like a congregation ‘thirsting’ to hear the word.
This new recording, featuring an excellent cast of soloists led by Julian Prégardien (Evangelist) and Huw Montague Rendall (Jesus), uses Bach’s final, 1749 version of the score.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Prima parte: Herr, unser Herrscher
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2Prima parte: Jesus ging mit seinen Jüngern über den Bach Kidron
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3Prima parte: O große Lieb, o Lieb ohn’ alle Maße
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4Prima parte: Auf dass das Wort erfüllet würde
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5Prima parte: Dein Will gescheh, Herr Gott, zugleich
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6Prima parte: Die Schar aber und der Oberhauptmann
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7Prima parte: Von den Stricken meiner Sünden
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8Prima parte: Simon Petrus aber folgete Jesu nach
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9Prima parte: Ich folge dir gleichfalls mit freudigen Schritten
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10Prima parte: Derselbige Jünger war dem Hohenpriester bekannt
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11Prima parte: Wer hat dich so geschlagen
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12Prima parte: Und Hannas sandte ihn gebunden
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13Prima parte: Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin
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14Prima parte: Petrus, der nicht demkt zurück
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15Seconda parte: Christus, der uns selig macht
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16Seconda parte: Da führeten sie Jesum von Kaiphas vor das Richthaus
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17Seconda parte: Ach großer König, groß zu allen Zeiten
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18Seconda parte: Da sprach Pilatus zu ihm
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19Seconda parte: Betrachte, mein Seel, mit ängstlichem Vergnügen
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20Seconda parte: Erwäge, wie sein blutgefärbter Rücken
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21Seconda parte: Und die Kriegsknechte flochten eine Krone von Dornen
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22Seconda parte: Durch dein Gefängnis, Gottes Sohn
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23Seconda parte: Die Jüden aber schrieen und sprachen
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24Seconda parte: Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen
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25Seconda parte: Allda kreuzigten sie ihn
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26Seconda parte: In meinen Herzens Grunde
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27Seconda parte: Die Kriegsknechte aber, da sie Jesum gekreuziget hatten
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28Seconda parte: Er nahm alles wohl in acht
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29Seconda parte: Und von Stund an nahm sie der Jünger zu sich
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30Seconda parte: Es ist vollbracht!
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31Seconda parte: Und neiget das Haupt und verschied
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32Seconda parte: Mein teurer Heiland, lass dich fragen
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33Seconda parte: Und siehe da, der Vorhang im Tempel zerriss
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34Seconda parte: Mein Herz, in dem die ganze Welt
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35Seconda parte: Zerfließe, mein Herze
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36Seconda parte: Die Jüden aber, dieweil es der Rüsttag war
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37Seconda parte: O hilf, Christe, Gottes Sohn
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38Seconda parte: Darnach hat Pilatum Joseph von Arimathia
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39Seconda parte: Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine
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40Seconda parte: Ach Herr, lass dein lieb Engelein
Europadisc Review
It’s the sheer intensity that hits you first. This new account of Bach’s St John Passion from Raphaël Pichon and his Pygmalion ensemble starts with surely the most grippingly raw, fast-paced account of the opening chorus on disc. The listener is hurled into the maelstrom of swirling strings, louring bass line and tortured woodwind suspensions with nary a let-up. Pichon charges straight on to the middle section without the Luftpause so often deployed at that point in other performances. Yet, for all the compelling drive of this beginning (as shocking as Bach can ever have intended), overall this isn’t the shortest St John Passion on record. That’s because, despite a sure feel for the work’s musical and dramatic momentum, Pichon allows time at key moments for the narrative to breathe, and to speak to us.
This sense of involvement is vividly conveyed not just by the choir and orchestra of Pygmalion, but by a fine line-up of soloists, led by Julian Prégardien’s urgently involving Evangelist and Huw Montague Rendall’s sensitively sung Jesus. In the interrogation scene before Christian Immler’s Pilate, Prégardien positively shouts out the word ‘Mörder’ at the line ‘Barrabas aber war ein Mörder’ (‘Now Barrabas was a murderer’); he goes on to give a searingly impassioned account of the following tenor aria ‘Ach, mein Sinn’.
The St John Passion is usually characterised as more overtly dramatic than the great St Matthew Passion with its succession of contemplative chorales. Yet the St John also has moments of searching introspection as impactful as any in the later work to balance the visceral excitement of the crowd scenes (the turba choruses). Think of the great alto aria in Part 2, ‘Es ist vollbracht’, sung with mournful tenderness here by mezzo Lucile Richardot (partnered by Julien Léonard’s exquisite bass viol playing), before bursting into action at the words ‘Der Held aus Juda siegt mit Macht’. Then the moment of Jesus’s death is barely whispered by the Evangelist.
No less moving is the achingly beautiful soprano aria that follows soon after, ‘Zerfliesse, mein Herze’, delivered with a jewelled radiance by Ying Fang and Pygmalion’s fine woodwind soloists: there’s none of the anaemic vibrato-less vocal tone heard on some other recordings, but the tonal intensity is laid completely at the service of text and music. In the immediately preceding tenor arioso, the rapid repeated notes in the upper strings are delivered as biting quasi-tremolos at a fast tempo, creating a tension that is then resolved in the aria itself.
The turba choruses are no one-dimensional affairs, either. Sung by a choir of 19 singers, but often suggesting a larger group, some are delivered in hushed, rhythmically alert tones, others at full-pelt; some end defiantly, others melt away. All reflect Pichon’s total grasp of the unfolding drama and its underlying spiritual message. Perhaps the true heart of the St John Passion, however, comes in the two bass arias with chorus, both sung by Immler. The first, ‘Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen... nach Golgatha’ (‘Hasten, you tormented souls... to Golgotha’) has a thrilling urgency, Immler implacably spurring the chorus on. In the second, ‘Mein teurer Heiland, lass dich fragen’, the soloist’s quick but gentle vibrato brings a consolatory tone against the softly sung chorale in the choir.
Pichon, like several other conductors, opts for Bach’s final, 1749 version of the score, which essentially follows the work’s original conception of 25 years earlier, but with muted violins replacing the obsolete violas d’amore in the arioso and aria ‘Betrachte, meine Seel’/‘Erwäge, wie sein blutgefärbter Rücken’. The way in which the final double bass note of the arioso is sustained in suspended animation after the last chord has sounded is one of numerous moments of detail that illustrate Pichon’s vivid engagement with the music. And it is the consistent sense of involvement with this, the most visceral of Bach’s great vocal works, that marks out this performance as very special, and a worthy successor to the Pygmalion accounts of the B minor Mass and the Gramophone award-winning St Matthew Passion.
The recording, made in Namur’s Grand Manège concert hall, has enough resonance to suggest a church acoustic, but catches every detail, the presentation is handsome, and the booklet contains Pichon’s own detailed reflections on a work he clearly holds dear. In a crowded field, this St John Passion stands out for its thrilling immediacy, balanced by sensitivity and technical polish. A remarkable achievement!
Reviews
Raphaël Pichon tears into the meat-grinding opening chorus with its agonised cries of desperation, later whipping his singers into a frenzy as they call for the release of Barrabas and demand that Christ be crucified. ... In a fine lineup of soloists, Ying Fang’s purity contrasts nicely with the otherworldliness of Lucile Richardot, rounding off one of the most theatrical St Johns in the catalogue. Clive PagetThe Guardian
Raphaël Pichon’s Pygmalion ensemble – seven soloists, a choir of 19 and 25 instrumentalists, all of the “authentic” persuasion – fulfil every expectation, right from the turbulent, sometimes harsh sounds of the opening chorus. Further on, the confrontation, agony and violence of the Crucifixion scenes couldn’t be more gripping. ... Tender pianissimos abound almost as much as the chorus’s forceful shouts, and the changing instrumental textures offer their own variety. Geoff BrownThe Times 20 March 2026
Pichon’s conviction is so aligned to the directness of John’s Gospel that we know we will be drawn on to the stage and into the drama, more than simple observers. ... Julian Prégardien’s fluidly theatrical Evangelist’s narration is as much about the varying of pace as changing vocal colour. It is as if he’s moving around a set, while the organ accompaniment and theorbo add to the commentary with their own ornamental presence. ... [Prégardien] ekes out meaning from every corner of the text. It ranks as one of the most involving Evangelists on record. ... Pygmalion have now served us with a trilogy of Bach masterpieces throwing down the gauntlet for our times. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood (Recording of the Month)Gramophone April 2026
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