Bach St Matthew Passion

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s St Matthew Passion turned the Usher Hall into a theatre of voices on Thursday night. The choristers of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, in red, stood behind the SCO Chorus in black, with Maxim Emelyanychev conducting from a green-and-gilded harpsichord at the centre. The opening arrived in choral stereo, voices passing across the stage as the two orchestras built weight beneath them. Flutes hovered between the phrases, almost presiding over the gaps. Early in Part I, after the anointing at Bethany, Tim Mead’s countertenor seemed to rise out of the bass line, lifting towards the flutes behind him; Hilary Cronin was similarly caught and carried by the violins. Voices and instruments repeatedly answered from different parts of the stage, with recorders, oboes and chamber organs shifting the texture around them. The SCO made Bach thick, layers often tightly pressed against one another.

After Jesus’ arrest, Mead and Cronin tangled over stalking strings and percussion, the music tightening around betrayal. Matthew Brook’s Jesus, placed towards the rear, gave the scene a deep, steady weight and sincerity. After the interval, Mead’s return in the countertenor lament came like a theatrical entrance, his voice pulling the audience back into the room. Emelyanychev’s clipped harpsichord pulse carried the procession after Christ’s death, before hard, crowded chords turned the chorus into a mob at the high priest’s hearing. Against that, the chorales stripped the sound back; Stephanie Gonley’s solemn and pointed violin solo wound through Mead’s lament, with recorder and oboe colours shifting around them.

The chorus could shift from mocking crowd to solemn lament almost without warning. Their cries of “crucify him” came from the back of the stage with a violence that seemed to travel through the hall. By the finale, the four soloists and chorus had been drawn back into one sound.

Bach St Matthew Passion by Scottish Chamber Orchestra, SCO Chorus, Choristers of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh. Credit Edinterval.