BACH: St. Matthew Passion - Berlin RIAS Chamber Choir, Rene Jacobs (2 CDs)

Previously released as a deluxe Hybrid SACD with a bonus DVD, Rene Jacobs's acclaimed recording of the Bach St. Matthew Passion is now available as a standard CD at a special price. Jacobs leads a cast of superb soloists, backed by the RIAS Kammerchor and Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin, in a recording that focuses on the paradox of a drama that is at once intimate, theatrical, and collective. As always, there are interpretive surprises, but the recording's emotional and spiritual intensity is a constant from beginning to end.

René Jacobs - Conductor

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin - Early music ensemble

RIAS Kammerchor Berlin - Choral ensemble

Staats- und Domchor Berlin - Choral ensemble

Sunhae Im - Soprano

Bernarda Fink - Mezzo-soprano

Werner Güra - Tenor

Topi Lehtipuu - Tenor

Johannes Weisser - Bass

Konstantin Wolff - Bass-baritone

It has haunted René Jacobs since childhood: first as a boy soprano in Ghent, then as a countertenor, he has constantly frequented the supreme masterpiece that is the St Matthew Passion. Today he examines it at the point of intersection between historical musicology (forget the work’s deceptive ‘stereophony’!) and theology; served here by artists totally devoted to the project and a three-dimensional multichannel recording, the ‘great Passion’ embodies more than ever the paradox of a drama at once intimate, theatrical, and collective. An initiatory journey, a progress towards the light that will grip every listener.