Yes, they do, or at least they did once. I’m thinking of Nikolaus Matthes’ latest recording, the Markus Passion, which fills 3 compact discs and sounds like a Bach-era Passion. It can even be be by Bach. The text is from Bach’s time. However, Mathes was born in 1981.
To be clear, it’s not against Bach’s best work, but I have no problem comparing it to the Median Bach cantata, which is still excellent. It is also better than many works by Bach’s contemporaries, including the best known.
However, no one cares. Have you heard of this job before? How often will you hear about it from now on?
Perhaps you question my judgment of the quality of this work? Well, you might check out Fanfare, the world’s number one site for classical music reviews. Fanfare offers the work six different reviews.
For example, Colin Clarke wrote: “But does it work? Definitely. This is the most remarkable Baroque music of our time – by which I mean this doesn’t sound 21st century in retrospect, instead, it sounds like it was written in Bach’s time, without the odd detour. Most of the time, it would be music written by Bach himself, and I can’t praise Matthes’s achievement enough.”
Or to David Cutler: “…Matthes has accomplished something incredible. It has more than a hint of Bach, but is it Bach? The jury must be out on that, but isn’t that the idea? “
James A. Altena writes: “In short, both the work itself and this work are complete triumphs, and do full and proper credit to Bach. I can’t think of a higher compliment than that.”
All of the reviewers were great, as was a composer friend of mine who listened to the piece. The job’s home page offers some great reviews. And no, I don’t like Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony.
You can buy it on Amazon Germany, and a few other places, streaming links here.
I feel like I need to revise some of my ideas about beauty, I’m not sure which ones. And who is Mathes? Is this another Ossian thing, or rather the opposite?
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