Bach - St. John Passion / Midori Suzuki, Robin Blaze, Gerd Turk, Chiyuki Urano, Stephan MacLeod, Masaaki Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan, Tokyo

.... is clearly world-wide, and still spreading. I reckon if we ever make contact with intelligent beings from another solar system, Bach will be our best evidence that we are an evolved species with emotional intelligence.Suntory Hall in Tokyo is a great venue, a fully supportive acoustic for both the musicians' and the audience's ears, but I'm surprised to see that "amazon'" credits the Hall as the "starring" performer. It is grand, by the way, to catch a few glimpses of the audience at this 2000 performance and to see mostly younger people - few grey heads - than you would see at an American or European venue. The Bach Collegium Japan gets a lot of credit for building such enthusiasm.This performance of the St. John Passion is not perfect. There are moments of shaky tuning from the choir, though not many. The violins play cleanly but without great expressiveness. The viola da gamba, in its one moment of obbligato glory, limps along at best. Basso Stephan MacLeod sings accurately but without much power or poignancy. On the other hand, the chorus is excellent in its rhythmic ensemble and articulation; the balance is such that one can hear the alto and tenor lines even in the homophonic chorales. The oboes, oboe da caccia, bassoon, and humongous contra-bassoon are all technically strong and expressively vigorous. Alto Robin Blaze lives up to his reputation. The star, of course, is the Evangelist, sung masterfully by tenor Gerd Türk. All the great Baroque Passions can be made or broken by the Evangelist; this performance exposes how dominant that voice is - and needs to be - in the St. John Passion. The stage set-up, with Türk standing in front beside conductor Maasaki Suzuki, ampliflies that dominance almost to the point of rendering the other soloists superfluous.Yes, there are musically more perfect performances of the St. John Passion on CD, but watching a solid performance like this, with all the camera-work focused on the musicians and none of it on distracting iconography, is a rewarding experience. The sound reproduction quality on this DVD is better, to my ears, than on many of the available CDs, and lots of people these days have better speaker systems attached to their gigantic plasma screens than to their "stereo" systems. Everything about this performance is chaste, simple, and brisk, as befits a concert rather than a liturgical celebration.

If you have the patience to let it work, this performance will pierce your heart with its solemn beauty. As distant and alien as Bach's music sounds to ears accustomed to being assaulted by "rap" and other aural garbage, it lifts the listener to the realm where Christ's sacrifice becomes intensely personal, yet magnificently universal. For those not familiar with the work, it tells the story of Christ's passion and death, interweaving texts directly from the Gospel of John, sung by soloists representing each part, with choral texts reflecting man's response to this wondrous yet heart-breaking tale. The result is a timeless masterpiece capable of moving the heart of even the most faithless and cynical. The scaled down forces in this performance make for a wonderful transparency to the sound. Each soloist brings just the right degree of personal identification with his or her part. And thankfully, the English subtitles make every word count.If at this Easter season, you seek something less brutal, yet no less profound in its directness and impact than Mel Gibson's Passion, Bach will not let you down.

Bought this for my wife's birthday; she is a Bach lover. She had St. Matthew Passion but didn't have this on CD. While I was shopping for the CD on Amazon, I ran across this DVD. After reading the reviews, I decided to buy this. It is fantastic! Having the subtitles makes it even better than watching live because you can follow the story as it is being sung! The video quality is great and the sound recording quality is fantastic--especially considering that it is live! We watched it on our second TV in the bedroom, a small Toshiba 19-inch with stereo speakers, and it sounds great. If you love Bach's sacred music, you will love this DVD. I'm going to see what other DVD's the Bach Collegium Japan has available. Hope there is more!

Although lesser known than the St Matthew Passion, this work has a warmth and intimacy that is missing in the larger work. The performance offered here shows this work in its finest form, with a small (16 voice) chorus that was typical of performances of Bach's time. While performance was technically the flawless: perfectly in tune and incredibly precise rhythmically, it offered so much more - capturing all the emotion and drama of Christ crucifixion. The evangelist's performance was wonderful. His voice and face portrayed the emotion of the text even to those who do not speak German. The soprano soloist's voice was as crystal clear as a bell and is a joy to hear. The performance of the orchestra and chorus was equal to that of these soloists. This is the best purchase I have ever made.

The colour and soundis is ok, but the plastic case of the dvd is broken again..... .This is not the first, second, or third time........I have reflected, but the protection of the items needs improvement!!!!!!!!!!!! But the problem is , do Amazon take action??????

I thought I was buying a CD of the Passion. It was a DVD. So, I'm unable to listening to it while away from my computer. It's a lovely recording, but not the format I had thought I was getting.

This DVD is great this is the only time I have ever heard this performed with a harpsicord and it is wonderful.

The Bach Passions are somewhat of an acquired taste, with their long recitatives (the most important part is The Evangelist, who tells the story of the Passion). They contain magnificent music, but for full enjoyment, one really needs to know and appreciate the Passion story itself, as the two surviving Passions are perhaps the ultimate expression of Bach's deeply-felt Lutheranism.This is an unusual recording in that the performers are nearly all Japanese, Maasaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan, performing in Suntory Hall, Tokyo as part of the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, this performance having actually taken place on the anniversary itself (28 July 2000). Make no mistake, this is an outstanding group, performing and singing with committment and (if you'll pardon the expression) passion. The part of the Evangelist is excellently sung by German specialist Gerd Türk, and the other soloists are equally good. In many ways, Suzuki reminds me of John Eliot Gardiner, from the batonless conducting to the impassioned singing along with his choir. Clearly this is a man who doesn't do routine music making. The whole event is nicely captured on DVD.Highly recommended for all Bach lovers.P.S. Ignore the "currently unavailable" listing. It has been re-released in a new cover, which you will find by searching for DVDs under "suzuki bach".

This is a splendid interpretation, however the soloists on this DVD (EuroArts) are different and perhaps a bit weaker than the ones on the CD audio on BIS.DVD (EuroArts): Evangelist: Gerd TurkSoprano: Midori SuzukiCountertenor: Robin BlazeTenor: Gerd TurkBass Baritone: Chiyuki UranoBass: Stephen MacLeodStephen Mac Leod is a somewhat weak Jesus.CD audio:Evangelist: Gerd TurkSopranos:Ingrid Schmidthusen, Yoshie HidaCountertenor:Yoshikazu MeraTenor: Matoko SakuradaBass:Peter KooyBass (Jesus):Chiyuki Urano

This is an outstanding dvd. The music is wonderful. Bach himself thought highly of it and performed his St John Passion 4 times, including a few months before his death.Suzuki, his soloists, choir and orchestra perform the music intelligently and sensitively.The contrabassoon [if that is what it is] has to be one of the largest musical instruments I have ever seen. It is ginormous.I highly recommend this recording.It is, as far as I can ascertain, Bach Collegium Japan's only dvd. I do hope they will issue more.

LA PASSION SELON SAINT JEAN (Bach Collegium Tokyo – Masaaki Suzuki)Avant toute chose, il faut rendre hommage à ce Bach Collegium de Tokyo composé dans sa presque totalité de Japonais, un peuple à la culture millénaire mais qui ne se ferme pas à la culture occidentale, bien au contraire. Ici, elle est représentée par l'un de ses plus sublimes représentants: Jean-Sébastien Bach.Certes, cette représentation en direct de la Passion de Saint-Jean n’est pas parfaite. Il y a des moments où le chœur vacille un peu, mais pas souvent. Les violons jouent proprement mais sans grande expressivité. La viole de gambe, dans son unique moment de gloire obligato, s'en sort correctement, sans plus. La Basse Stephan MacLeod chante avec précision mais sans beaucoup de puissance ni d'émotion.Par contre, le chœur, composé en tout et pour tout de 16 chanteurs hommes et femmes, est excellent dans son ensemble rythmique et son articulation; l’équilibre est tel que l’on peut entendre les lignes alto et ténors même dans les chorals homophoniques. Les hautbois, le hautbois de chasse, le basson et le contre-basson volumineux sont tous techniquement forts et expressivement vigoureux. Le contre-ténor Robin Blaze est à la hauteur de sa réputation. L’étoile, bien sûr, est l’évangéliste, chanté magistralement par le ténor Gerd Türk.La qualité de toutes les grandes Passions baroques dépend beaucoup de l’évangéliste; la prestation de monsieur Türk montre à quel point cette voix est dominante – et doit l’être – dans la Passion de Saint-Jean.La mise en scène, avec lui debout devant le chef d’orchestre Maasaki Suzuki qui l'accompagne au clavecin, amplifie cette domination presque au point de rendre les autres solistes superflus. Ces derniers ne sont d'ailleurs pas solistes à temps plein, mais font partie du chœur.Oui, il y a des versions musicalement plus parfaites de cette Passion sur CD, mais regarder une performance solide comme celle-ci, avec tout le travail de la caméra axée sur les seuls musiciens et aucune iconographie distrayante, est une expérience enrichissante. La qualité de reproduction sonore sur ce DVD, servie par des téléviseurs modernes au son performant, est meilleure que celle de beaucoup de CD disponibles.Tout dans cette représentation est chaste, simple et dynamique, comme il convient à un concert plutôt qu’une célébration liturgique. Comme elles nous semblent dérisoires, les éructations de certains représentants d'une autre religion qui disent que ceux qui écoutent de la musique classique occidentale seront changés en porcs !

I am an admirer of these talented musicians and have several of their Bach CDs, and therefore looked forward to this DVD with high expectations. Many, but not all were realized, but there were a number of unexpected compensations. Firstly, I learned a great deal about this group and its much-lauded director that I have not known previously and is to my knowledge not mentioned in the CD booklets. The latter includes the realization that instrumentalists and choir remain standing throughout the performance -- no mean feat in a work this long. The excellent soloists are not only responsible for their own arias, but when not performing solo they metamorphose into ordinary members of the chorus, one reason why the ensemble singing reaches the stellar quality that it manages to achieve. The continuo is played by Suzuki himself without relaxing his iron grip on the proceedings. Visually, it is apparent that period instruments are being used although I suspected otherwise from the CD acoustics. Not here. Personally, I prefer the brightness of their modern equivalents. I was also surprised that the overall forces employed were fewer than I would have expected from the sound quality to which their CD recordings have accustomed me. Whether psychologically or for valid reasons, I found the texture of the sound disappointingly thin; more disturbing in a work of this length and dramatic power than in the Cantatas that are my other reference source. I know this Mass very well, but always in performances by much larger groups. I missed the ferocious excitement that the music engenders in many sequences, notably the opening Chorus and several of the subsequent passages where the angry mob is screaming for the blood of the Saviour. Much of Christ's suffering is muter than it should be, Passion under an anaesthetic, as it were. But I must emphasize that these are very personal impressions. Others may well prefer the more restrained and spiritual qualities of the present performance. The accompanying booklet is close to useless, and there are no extras.Why then a 5-star recommendation? Mainly because of the commitment and deep understanding of the wonderful musical score that permeate the performances, individually and overall. Pride of place goes to Gerd Turk, the hardest-worked of all, who turns in a superlative rendition of the tenor roles (Evangelist and solo arias), and Robin Blaze, arguably the finest counter-tenor of this generation. The stentorian Pilatus of Chiyaki Urano rings with the imperial authority of a Roman Proconsul rather than the Japanese Shogun he might otherwise be mistaken for,while the two remaining soloists provide very satisfactory interpretations of their respective Soprano and Bass parts. The orchestra plays with an enthusiastic spirit: thin in manpower, but clear and vibrant in their lovely solo arias. The Choir benefits from the added resources of the soloists, but even so, the combination is not adequate to convey the full dramatic impact. Compensating to a certain degree is the clarity of the vocal sound, while their ability to express the meaning of the German text in musical terms is nothing short of astonishing, and remains unsurpassed by any of the great Teutonic ensembles. The undemonstrative charisma of Suzuki is evident throughout, both musically and visually.With respect to the last-mentioned feature, the camera does a great job with the soloists, the Choir, and the Orchestra. But the elegant Suntory Hall is not sufficiently exploited, nor is the interaction with the audience given the attention it should receive in a DVD of a live performance. The camera work is good, but its range is limited to the events on the stage itself, a wasted opportunity and a much-required diversion in a performance of this length. The English subtitles allow the narrative to unfold in dramatic fashion. I have never previously appreciated the flavour of the text to this extent and, as the progeny of the bloodthirsty mob, I felt somewhat uncomfortable, but whether this is history, mythology, or a cynical blood libel, the totality of words and music is a towering masterpiece transcending all faiths and theologies.