Mighty Bach
Matthaüs-Passion Barbican ‘God save us…it’s just as if one were at an opera!’ a woman is quoted as saying at a performance of Bach’s Matthaüs-Passion in the 18th century. If she meant that it is hard to imagine a more intensely dramatic experience — it is other kinds of experience, too, of course — then she was right. It was fashionable 40 years or so ago to say that the St Matthew Passion is less dramatic than the St John Passion, a view argued by Britten and his acolytes. I think they were wrong: the Matthaüs-Passion is at least as dramatic as its shorter twin, but it has other elements,