Music Reviews : A Compelling ‘St. Matthew’ at Bach Festival

The Los Angeles Bach Festival has been the pillar of local musical life since 1934. The current edition ended Sunday with a “St. Matthew” Passion that clearly showed why--a dramatically urgent, musically and spiritually compelling reading of a repertory monument.

Thomas Somerville presided with characteristic calm and incisive authority over the large forces filling the First Congregational Church chancel. He delineated the levels of action and meditation carefully, shaping the large-scale scenas as attentively as individual choruses and arias, and made sure that the ravishing music always carried forward the drama.

The Passions, though, are essentially a musical version of readers’ theater, and depend on--demand--a convincing narrator. In the case of “St. Matthew,” this fluent storyteller must also cope with an awesome vocal challenge to stamina, range and finesse.

Tenor Bruce Johnson did so with consistent glory. The strain could be heard by the end of Part I, but he remained an amazingly clear, astonishingly expressive Evangelist, one who sounded like an immediate witness to the events he described.

As Christ, baritone Kenneth Knight proved equally adept vocally. But almost everything he sang was a little too slow for dramatic impact. Somerville may have wanted it to contrast with the swift surroundings, but the result sounded predicated on the time-dishonored cliche that sacred equals solemn.

Holly Shaw Price supplied a sweet, fluid soprano, as completely committed to the textual points as to the sinuous music. Veteran mezzo Florine Hemmings had trouble with disappearing low notes, but rose convincingly to the demands of “Erbarme dich.”

Tenor Alvin Brightbill sang on the very edge of technical control, but with clarion sound and thrilling exigency. Bass Michael Gallup offered rich, ripe sounds, but did little to distinguish between the bluster of Pilate and the submissive sweetness of his arias.

The divided chorus, dominated by the basses, made mighty noises where appropriate. It otherwise contributed tellingly phrased chorales and captured the reflective ache of the opening and closing choruses.

The crack orchestra, also divided, gave finely detailed support, though scrambling to follow Somerville on occasion. Violinists Kathleen Lenski and Roger Wilkie, flutists Gary Woodward and Lisa Edelstein, and oboists Peter Scott and Electra Reed provided pertinent obligatos, rising to real brilliance in Wilkie’s case.

Cellist Roger Lebow, buried physically and sonically in the dense mass of musicians, also had taxing solos, and anchored an accommodating continuo contingent that included harpsichordist Grant Gershon and organist Lloyd Holzgraf.