Symphonic Bach: the St Matthew Passion in the glorious Sheldonian Theatre made notable by some strong individual performances

The Berlin Singakademie building, designed by Carl Theodor Ottmer, 1825-1827, now Maxim Gorki Theater painting by Eduard Gaertner, 1843

Bach: St Matthew Passion; Nicholas Mulroy, Ashley Riches, Julia Doyle, Helen Charlston, Samuel Boden, Michael Mofidian, Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford, the boys of Radley College, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Owen Rees; Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra’s Bach Mendelssohn Festival the Sheldonian Theatre
Reviewed 2 March 2025

Celebrating Mendelssohn’s revival of Bach’s great Passion in a symphonic performance in a historically apposite venue. Nicholas Mulroy’s Evangelist and some strong solo singing make for a significant evening

When Mendelssohn performed Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Berlin Singakademie in 1829 he had known the work since at least 1824 when his sister Fanny gave him a copy of the score for his fifteenth birthday. But the Mendelssohns were closely interlinked with Bach’s memory, one of Felix and Fanny’s great aunts was a student of Wilhelm Friedeman Bach and a friend of Carl Philipp Emmanuel. It is due to her, and her brother (Felix and Fanny’s grandfather) that a substantial quantity of Bach’s original manuscripts were collected and survived.

Felix Mendelssohn presented Bach’s St Matthew Passion in 1829 (to celebrate what was then believed to be the centenary of the first presentation of the work). It was a very different work to what Bach might have experienced. There were substantial cuts (including ten arias) and Mendelssohn adjusted the recitatives, whilst his performers included over 150 singers and 70 players.

Since then, Bach scholarship has developed and it is not unknown for performances to use as few as eight singers, following the Lutheran tradition of Bach’s time. But Bach’s music is able to transcend even the most individual vision, whether it be a full choral symphonic performance on modern instruments or a historically informed on using small forces and a vocal ensemble.

The first part of Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra‘s Bach Mendelssohn Festival took Mendelssohn’s Elijah as its focus, so it was fitting that for the second part, the festival turned its attention to Bach’s St Matthew Passion on Sunday 2 March 2025. Owen Rees, director of the choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford, conducted his choir along with members of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra at the Sheldonian Theatre, with Nicholas Mulroy as the Evangelist, Ashley Riches as Christus and soloists Julia Doyle, Helen Charlston, Samuel Boden (replacing Guy Gutting) and Michael Mofidian. Michael Mofidian sang Pilate with the other roles taken by members of the choir.

This was very much a symphonic performance, Rees conducted a choir of nearly 40 singers (plus the boys of Radley College) with an orchestra of nearly 40 players on modern instruments and playing Bach in a very late 19th-century style. Such large-scale performances works if the person at the helm has a very clear stylistic idea of what they want to achieve. Anyone who has heard David Hill conduct the Bach Choir in their annual St Matthew Passion will know what can be achieved, and I can never forget hearing the joint forces of the Tölz Boys Choir, choir of St Thomas’ Church Leipzig and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Chailly in 2009, filling the stage at the Barbican Hall and providing a profoundly moving experience [see my article].

As conductor of the Sheldonian Theatre performance, Owen Rees seemed to have far less of a stylistic view of the work. He drew very fine singing indeed from his choir but over all his approach was that of a kapellmeister, drawing the various threads of the evening together yet never quite making them cohere into a whole. This meant that there were stylistic disjoints. At the opening of Part Two, Helen Charlston’s plangent line and dignified classical approach did not seem to exist in the same expressive world as the hushed choral textures from Choir Two in ‘Ach, nun ist mein Jesus hin!’. And in Charlston’s movingly direct account of ‘Erbarme dich’ later in the work, her focused intensity contrasted markedly with the rather 19th century approach to phrasing from solo violine Carmine Lauri and the strings.

Oddities of role allocation in the orchestra seem to have meant that at one point the flautist from Orchestra One played with the wind players from Orchestra Two. And in Michael Mofidian’s final aria, ‘Mass dich, mein Herze’, the oboists of Orchestra Two (playing oboes d’amore) joined with the body of Orchestra One to rather deleterious effect on ensemble at times. Mofidian seemed to suffer more than once, as in his early aria ‘Komm, süßes Kreuz’, solo cellist Peter Adams (who had contributed lots of fine continuo cello), turned to the viola da gamba and here his playing was effortful with some poor tuning.

But there were, indeed, many gains. The chorus was on strong form, and I very much appreciated their lithe, youthful and focused tone, allied to a sense of discipline. Rees’ speeds were steady, so that many of the choruses had a sense of lightness, but in the great choruses that begin and end the work, there was no shortage of expressive depth. Seven members of the choir contributed solos with a notable Judas from Ben Gilchrist and a fine Peter from Bastian Bohrmann.

The space that Rees afforded his performers meant that Nicholas Mulroy’s Evangelist really seemed to blossom. Singing from memory, this was a profoundly communicative performance as Mulroy seemed to direct the story right at us. And it was prime story telling as Mulroy expressively varied his tone, timbre, volume and delivery, often turning on a pin, to convey the ultimate expression of the text. And this wasn’t some sort of bravura performance, it had a simple directness to it, just Mulroy and us and a powerful story.

Ashley Riches made a dignified Christus, sometimes trenchant and making his statements in Part Two really mean something. Though Riches never quite found that magic something which enables a modern Christus to make the part speak even though it is relatively compact. Perhaps it did not help that the halo of strings that Bach provides for the role, were here given a very 19th century spin in terms of phrasing.

Julia Doyle made a poised and stylish soprano soloist. In her first solo, you felt that she was aiming for a more intimate chamber performance and balance sometimes favoured the orchestra, but in her solos with just a few instruments accompanying, Doyle really did create real magic. Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston [whom we last saw with Solomon’s Knot singing Bach’s St John Passion one to a part, see my review] here produced plenty of fabulously expressive, plangent yet focused tone with a sense of line so that her singing was always on point no matter what the orchestration. Tenor Samuel Boden, like Julia Doyle, seemed to be aiming for a lighter, more intimate work and his best moments were those when it was just him and the continuo. Bass Michael Mofidian produced some real quality singing, with lovely full yet focused tone and an expressive use of his resonant voice across the range. His final two arias with highlights, but each time he sang the dramatic tension rose. That he was Pilate, interacting with Riches’ Christus in a highly dramatic way, meant that these scenes had an extra frisson to them.

The Sheldonian Theatre dates from the 1660s and has remained substantially unchanged. It was the scene of Handel’s premiere of Athalia, and so not entirely inappropriate for Bach. The venue is somewhat challenging for modern audiences and our seats, whilst having a terrific view, did rather require something of a fitness test before accessing them!

The Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra’s Bach Mendelssohn Festival continues until 20 March, see website for details.