BBC Proms: St Matthew Passion Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
Royal Albert Hall, London
Remember when the Proms was a festival of choral spectaculars – choirs-of-thousands setting the Victorian foundations quivering with shock waves of Verdi, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Britten?
It feels like another era, and yet slowly, as this season has progressed, signs of choral life have returned. This send-off from Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen (9 September) boasted the biggest forces yet for a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion that felt as much like an act of thanksgiving as of supplication: thanks for a season that, after two years of silence, has finally restored audiences to the hall, providing the silent, congregational contribution we missed so badly last year when musicians played to an empty space. Performances, it’s easy to forget, are always a dialogue, and this Passion restored that dynamic: not just addressing us, but implicating us in the familiar story.
Period ensemble Arcangelo is still a young group, and under Cohen has built strong relationships with solo singers in an impressive and ever-growing discography. The proof was on show here in a dream team of British soloists, from soprano Louise Alder and countertenor Iestyn Davies, rising young tenor Hugo Hymas and Evangelist Stuart Jackson, to baritone Roderick Williams and bass Matthew Rose. Say what you will about Covid-era Proms programming, it has been a timely showcase for homegrown talent.
