Melbourne audiences were treated to a new reconstruction of a lost Passion by J.S. Bach in a performance of his St. Mark Passion (1744) at Wesley Uniting Church in Naarm/Melbourne during the autumnal Lenten season. This poignant performance featured the combined forces of The Australian Boys Choral Institute (ABCI), Genesis Baroque and guest soloists under the direction of conductor Nicholas Dinopoulos. This reconstruction of Bach’s lost St. Mark Passion by Dutch keyboard artist and musicologist Robert Koolstra was completed in 2017 and is now being performed worldwide. This collaborative performance between ABCI and Genesis Baroque featured sublime moments of choral beauty and ensemble cohesion that attended faithfully to Bach’s obvious centring of the text. Wesley Uniting Church, in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD, was a surprisingly effective acoustic in this memorable performance.
The performance of this St Mark Passion was imbued with an expressive honesty and naturalness that can easily be missed in performances of his other Passions. Immediately striking from the first movement of this performance was the Australian Boys Choir’s beauty of tone that conductor Nicholas Dinopoulos has cultivated into unified sections of treble and alto boys’ voices. These voices were cast alongside the lower tenor and bass voices from The Vocal Consort, whose youthful, blended sound complemented the higher voices, resulting in a homogenous sound.
The sweetness of tone from the treble voices and middle voices engendered an almost weightless feel at times in the first chorus, “Geh, Jesu, Geh zu deiner Pein!” (“Go, Jesus, go to your suffering!”). This unforced approach set the audience up for what was an intimate musical experience where other performances often opt for an outward expression of similar texts.
The uniqueness of young male voices provided similar moments of tonal beauty in most of the work’s numerous chorales. Of note, the chorales “Ich, ich und meine Sünden…” (I, I and my sins…”), “Betrübtes Herz, sei wohlgemut…” (Troubled heart, be comforted) and “O! Jesu du, mein Hilf and Ruh” (“Oh! Jesus, my aid and rest!) featured phrasing that perpetuated an elegiac atmosphere. The addition of the Kelly Gang and the training choirs of the ABCI in key chorales further supported the central choirs’ singing of the chorales, which were never perfunctory in delivery. In the more dramatic narrative sections of chorus delivery, the choir’s execution of Bach’s counterpoint was consistent and clear across all sections, opting for a more delicate approach. The final chorus, the lilting pastoral “Bei deinem Grab und Leichenstein” (“By your grave and tombstone”), struck an optimistic tone amidst a general atmosphere of lament, including a rising and falling musical figure that evoked the image of a gentle hillside pasture with the notable loss of the shepherd.
Passions, like operas, feature soloists whose roles elevate the narrative to expressive heights as is the case of the Evangelist, delivered in almost exclusive recitative. In addition to a clear and direct delivery, tenor Timothy Reynolds was ever attentive to the dramatic and vocal demands of the role. His arias featured some beautifully sustained phrasing in “Ich lasse dich mein Jesu, nicht” (“I will not leave you, my Jesus”). Bass Baritone Jeremy Kleeman as the tortured Christ contrasted dramatic pertinence with florid outbursts of dramatic coloratura singing in the duo aria “Welt und Himmel nehmt zu Ohren” (“Earth and Heaven holds their Ears”). Soprano Rachael Joyce exuded an enigmatic vulnerability in her aria “Mein Heiland dich vergess ich nicht” (“My saviour, I do not forget you”). Mezzo Soprano Heather Fletcher was attentive to the word painting with a consistency of diction and resonance in her middle to high register in “Falsche Welt…”(False World…”). In addition to the principal soloists, several young soloists from choir were clear in their lines, with credit to choir old boys: bass baritone Declan Farr as the High Priest and former head chorister Justin Mitchell as Pilate. Their vocal and dramatic presence was commendable.
The presence of an authentic instrumental ensemble of baroque players was refreshing. Genesis Baroque, a Naarm/Melbourne based period instrument chamber orchestra, featured strings: two viola da gambas violone in addition to violin, viola and cello; the theorbo – a notable presence whose player, Samantha Cohen, continues to offer audiences a splash of colour that complemented the impressive continuo combination of Josephine Vains (cello) and Donald Nicolson (chamber organ). Also included was the distinctive sound of the baroque oboes, baroque recorders and baroque flutes, marked by moments when the flute and recorder were in unison that dallied frequently with Bach’s dance-like woven lines in the oboe parts. The resulting unique tone colours in this timbral combination proved to add lilt and sting where dramatically required. To have a working period instrument ensemble is a great asset to the musical life of the city and this collaboration has proven to be musically fruitful.
Director and conductor Nicholas Dinopoulos must be congratulated for his assured presence at the podium, a testimony to some careful preparation of young talent. To bring together the numerous forces required in a nuanced performance of a new vision of Bach’s music is work that continues to inspire as much as it consoles the soul with some of the sweetest music the world has as its heritage.
Photo credit: Elizabeth Lindner
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Stephen Marino reviewed Bach: St Mark Passion by The Australian Boys Choral Institute, Genesis Baroque and Guest soloists at Wesley Uniting Church, Naarm/Melbourne on Sunday March 30, 2025.
