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Just as California’s Huntington Library broke the scholarly stranglehold on the Dead Sea Scrolls by making the unilateral decion to publish the photographic plates of which they were stewards, so Naxos can be credited with making affordable classical music available to us masses, who still whince when we pay for a CD.
By employing ‘second-tier’ performers and recording technologies that are just short of the cutting edge, Naxos has squeezed great value into the mix and now offers a full catalogue of serious music to hungry aficionados.
This Scholars Baroque Ensemble performance of the second of J.S. Bach’s two extant ‘passions’ (the other is his more famous St. Matthew Passion) is Exhibit A in the case for Naxos’ triumph. Hardly a household word, the Ensemble produced this recording not in a studio but rather in London’s Church of All Saints, a venue that might have caused dear Johann to smile celestially upon the proceedings.
The result is a superb lean-and-mean ‘historically accurate’ (fighting words in the guild, offered here with all the implicit caveats) reading of Bach by artists whose love for the man’s music is patent.
In addition to the expected information, the cd liner contains German-to-English translation of the sung texts.
‘Intimate’ is perhaps the word that best describes what you’ll find in this recording, if that adjective can be used without seeming to damn by faint praise what is in fact an extraordinary and memorable reading of a work that shows that even Bach’s less highly regarded works are masterpieces.
Canter Bridge 
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