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" Every year on
Good Friday Birmingham Bach Choir brings Bach's St Matthew
Passion to Symphony Hall, and every year this towering masterpiece
revealing consummate technique, depth of emotion and profound
faith comes up powerful and fresh.
Bach must of course take the credit for much of this, but
also must the performers, who under Paul Spicer's direction
respond invigoratingly to the vast array of styles juxtaposed
in the massive score. Dance-metres, operatic-styles, arias,
dramatic outbursts and liturgical chorales all combine in
this universal expression, and on Friday all of these were
lightly, unobtrusively welded into a strongly communicative
entity.
The BBC is a large choir, even when, as here, split into two
cohorts, but its approach brings dynamic light and shade,
sensitively weighted tone, and a sure feel for rhythmic phrasing.
Why doesn't Radio 3 ever take these unsurpassable performances?
Is it easier to toddle along to routine carvings nearer home?
The time is not outside living memory when such events from
the Midlands were a regular feature."
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