RIAS Kammerchor, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, René Jacobs - Telemann: Brockes-Passion (2009)

The poet Barthold Heinrich Brockes was a Hamburg contemporary of Bach and Telemann. His Passion oratorio text is not the liturgical kind but largely consists of poetic images and sentiments which reflect changing taste and the newer values of the German Enlightenment. It was an immediate success and was set to music first by Keiser, then by Handel and Telemann in 1716 and subsequently by Mattheson, Fasch and Stölzel. Bach, too, used portions of it in his St John Passion. René Jacobs has more than once proved himself an eloquent advocate for Telemann's vocal music, notably with his fine recording of his opera, Orpheus (harmonia mundi). Now, 18 years after Nicholas McGegan's long deleted version of the Brockes Passion (Hungaroton), comes another chance to become acquainted with this richly rewarding score whose text, with its highly charged emotional language, combines to create some startlingly vivid imagery. It was praised to the skies after the first performance in Frankfurt and, thereafter Telemann himself noted 'this Passion caused choir stalls and chancels in many German towns to be filled with sound'. This is a splendid recording for which Jacobs has mustered, with characteristic discernment, an effective cast of soloists. Daniel Behle is a communicative Evangelist - a far stronger performance than Martin Klietmann in the older version - and Johannes Weisser a resonant, warm-textured Jesus.The remaining cast, freshvoiced, lightly articulated and agile affords uninterrupted pleasure, and that goes for the excellent RIAS Chamber Choir, too. In short all concerned seem to have embraced the evocative if, at times, sentimental ethos of the work. Right from the start Telemann draws us into the piece with a poignant C minor Sinfonia with its passages of dissonant harmony and virtuoso oboe writing. " Nicholas Anderson, BBC Music Magazine April 2009