I once heard composer Wolfgang Rihm assess a recording of the St. Matthew Passion as “Bach in the manner of Mahler.” On this recording, I heard Bach with an energy and irrepressible momentum that evokes John Adams’s opera Nixon in China.

Portland Baroque Orchestra director Monica Huggett brings to the St. John Passion the extreme gestures and breakneck virtuosity of Baroque opera—a con brio performance that would probably have shocked Bach’s conservative Leipzig employers but that, for a contemporary ear, is a whole lot of fun. (As was done in the Netherlands Bach Society’s 2004 Channel Classics
recording, she eliminates flutes from the
score, on the premise that they were thought to be absent from the original performance, and assigned their roles to violin and oboe. As string lines, parts in
difficult flute keys can be performed at virtuosic speed, adding justification to the radical tempo choices.)

What is lost in this emulation of Baroque opera is clarity of contrapuntal texture and compositional nuance, particularly in “Ach, mein Sinn,” where the tenor coloratura is obscured by the dramatic tempo. In
contrast, the opening chorales in Part 2 are extremely effective, especially the rising chromatic lines that
bounce from voice to voice, seeming to suck the air out of the room. Whether this trade-off reflects Bach’s intention remains, to me, an open question.

The virtuosity displayed by all performers is truly impressive, showing a level of professionalism and
musicality of which Bach could only dream. Huggett’s direction is pristine and very musical, and all the
soloists are delightful with full, yet well-controlled, declamation. The chorus is consistently strong, and
its dramatic role in the bass aria “Mein teurer Heiland, laß dich fragen” is particularly poignant—a pale shadow haunting the soloist.

The forces are about half the usual complement, but there is still a massiveness to the engineered sound that can seem incongruous with Huggett’s intention.