It’s starting to get predictable, huh? Another five balls for Pygmalion, the French baroque ensemble of conductor Raphaël Pichon that checks off every requirement to stage an exciting baroque concert in 2026. Young and eager? Check. Unparalleled top musical level? Check. Not afraid to take risks and kick some ass? Check.
That they are Bachs St. Matthew Passion can record, we already knew about the CD. But we had to wait a while for a live Matthäus. We first got the John Passionwith bonus tracks. Before that, including a Brahms concerto and a Elias by Mendelssohn. That’s all great, but in the Netherlands you can only really reach the top with a live Matthäus. It finally sounded on Tuesday evening in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
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Do you know the St. Matthew Passion not yet (good), then read our St. Matthew Guide
How? Not as wonderfully surprising as the Johannes last year.
That may be in Pichon’s now recognizable theatrical approach. And I don’t mean the nice trick in itself that one of the two choirs in the opening choir comes walking down the aisle. I mean he puts huge musical accents. He thinks more vertically (pulse-pulse-pulse) than horizontally (lines, direction), which is good for intelligibility, but slightly less so for staying stuck in a trance. Choir parts go through enormous emotional storylines every square inch: “Herr, bin ich’s?” (when Jesus tells his apostles that one of them is going to betray him, and the apostles all wonder: ‘is it me?’) goes from little fear, to blind panic, to disbelief in a few bars.
This benefits Johannes, who focuses more on action and less on feeling. Last year, Pygmalion managed to paint the inner worlds of the characters in the story in the Johannes. But the same approach with the Matthäus is a bit like changing the colors on the Night watch add some strength with crayons.
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When you hear the ‘John Passion’ by Pygmalion, you regularly think ‘Oh!’, but also at least a few times ‘Huh?’
The evangelist as the only real human being
The soloists, who diligently take up all kinds of positions on stage, also have to play with word accents. Alto Lucile Richardot takes the crown in ‘Buß und Reu’ (“Penance and Repentance”), in which “Buß” is almost hidden away in favor of a wildly exclaimed “Male!“. Soprano Julie Roset has an angelic voice, but does not reach the entire audience. Bass Christian Immler lacks depth and is just not authoritarian enough as High Priest and Pilate.
But then again: such criticism is a pain in the ass. A performance like this remains unthinkable with the ensembles we currently have in the Netherlands. Whichever way you look at it, in the Netherlands the St. Matthew is not only a sacred piece, but also a mandatory cash cow. Through years and years of repetition by partly the same people, the piece has become rusty and jaded. But for the musicians of Pygmalion this music is clearly still a journey of discovery. For them this music increases in holiness. That’s a joy to listen to.
Pichon only has to turn his hand to create a vortex in the choir, which already sounds so stunningly transparent and clearly layered. Nothing but good things about the orchestra musicians. Bas Stéphane Degout portrays a powerful, somewhat angry Christ. The performance of tenor Julian Prégardien as the evangelist, the narrator, deserves a separate piece. His person is so real that everything around him seems like a puppet show during his stories. Pichon has clearly seen that his role becomes stronger when Prégardien is allowed to move around a bit. Sometimes he holds his fingertips together, as if he is giving a TED talk. ‘And now I want to look at the hands in the room: who has ever denied someone?’ “I, I, Mr. Prégardien!” (As a matter of fact, eh.)
Then everything comes together when Jesus dies after his desperate cries (“My God, why have you forsaken me?!”). Suddenly Pichon stops the music, the pulse, the room, time, the world. This moment is what matters to him, as the choir emerges from the silence, suddenly without a pulse, intensely human: “If I have to die, stay with me. If I have to suffer death, be close to me.”
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Conductor Raphaël Pichon: ‘I feel religious thanks to Bach’
Listen for yourself:
Pygmalion released the St. John Passion on CD this year. That means you can now listen to Pygmalion-great performances of Bach’s two great passions at home and on the go:
