Can one really present "the greatest work in the entire history of music" in a shortened version? In fact one can. And very successfully. Because Bach never intended the St. Matthew Passion to be "easy listening". He wasn't even interested in a string of hits – which the work undeniably is. Bach wanted to help the parishioners of Leipzig to meditate on the passion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ at the services on the afternoon of Good Friday. The work consists of a string of different scenes and the entire collection might be too much at one CD-sitting for even the most pious of music-lovers. Far better to pay serious attention to a selected number of passion scenes. These have been selected from the fêted recording by Masaaki Suzuki and his usual forces – universally recognized as one of the great recordings of this work of modern times. And we are now able to offer this one-disc version in surround sound! A truly moving experience.
Extra material for download
