MUSIC REVIEW : L.A. Bach Fest Closes With ‘St. John’ Passion

The finale on Sunday of the 1992 Los Angeles Bach Festival, a presentation in the First Congregational Church of Johann Sebastian’s “St. John” Passion, ultimately compensated with dramatic point for what it lacked in polish.

The major problems were restricted to the first half, where Bach subtly lays the groundwork for the harrowing scenes of betrayal and physical agony in Part II.

Thomas Somerville’s direction of his forces--anchored by a first-class string ensemble, peppered with key members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra--here seemed predicated on maintaining the mobility of too-numerous choristers, in the interests of unfolding the story affectingly without the all-purpose grandeur that in less enlightened times subverted Bach’s vital, human drama to Victorian piety.

The results were spotty, with too many of the choruses roughly delivered. Splintered entrances abounded, with sectional balance and clarity of diction (Somerville’s English-language edition was used) sometime things.

As the dramatic springs were tightened toward the denouement of the Crucifixion, such considerations became secondary to an appreciation of Somerville’s gutsy leadership, the appropriately high-strung Evangelist of Bruce Johnson and, particularly, the chilling authority of Michael Gallup’s Pilate, simultaneously keeping the peace among his unruly subjects and absolving himself, with lethally rational arguments, from complicity in a miscarriage of justice.

Elsewhere, the listener could savor the sweet-toned solos of soprano Holly Price Ristuccia and Patricia Mabee’s inventive, if hyperactive, harpsichord continuo. On the debit side was James Koenig’s tremulous, vaguely pitched Jesus.