Heinrich Schutz - St. Matthew Passion

St.Matthew Passion - History of the suffering and death of our Lord and Saviour

Karine Serafin (Soprano), 
Sophie Toussaint (Alto), 
Cécile Kempenaers (Mezzo Soprano),
Philippe Roche (Bass), 
Damien Guillon (Countertenor), 
Hervé Lamy (Tenor),
Jan Van Elsacker (Tenor), 
Matthew Baker (Tenor), 
François Roche (Tenor),
Emmanuel Mandrin (Organ) 

Akademia Ensemble	 
Francoise Lasserre – conductor

'Our work on the St Matthew Passion of Schütz repeatedly placed us in a quandor: how to disregard the major work composed by Bach on the same Gospel narrative? The singers, confronted with the temptation of adopting the rhythmic inflections of the later composer's recitative, concentrated their attention on all the expressive resources provided by figuralism and modulation. But...Bach unexpectedly caught up with me again when, at the stage of deciding the order of the pieces on the CD, far removed from any musicological preoccupation, I felt the need to introduce in the course of the Passion two of the works that fill out the recording. Thus they appear here as a commentary on the Last Supper and on Peter's remorse, and play the same predicatory role as the arias in a Bach Passion.' --- Françoise Lasserre

download: CD1 CD2

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