It was almost a foregone conclusion that the Gabrieli Consort and Players' performance of the St Matthew Passion would be the most controversial version of the work to be heard over Easter. Paul McCreesh, the Consort's director, is drastic in his approach. His aim is to expose - to use TS Eliot's phrase - "the skull beneath the skin" of the music, to strip it down uncompromisingly to its bare essentials. Bach's double orchestra becomes two small groups of instrumentalists and the choral lines are allotted to single voices. Four soloists carry both the narrative and the arias, which means the singers cast as the Evangelist (Mark Padmore) and Jesus (Peter Harvey) have to leap suddenly out of character for moments of reflection and emotional commentary.
The result, contrary to expectations, is anything but austere, though it leads to a performance that doesn't always scale the tragic heights it should. There's a strong element of physicality in McCreesh's music-making, mirrored in the swirling, balletic gestures with which he conducts. He lays a hefty emphasis on how the explicit vividness of Bach's instrumental writing dictates an almost physical response. The instrumental obbligati trickle round the singers like rivulets of tears; the string chords accompanying the contralto's contemplation of the scourging slice the air.
The nakedness of suffering the work explores is reflected in McCreesh's exposure of the naked vulnerability of voices and instruments. As a result, you are sometimes aware of imprecision in the playing, although the singing is more cohesive. Harvey's Jesus mingles resigned divinity with palpable, at times excruciating, terror and doubt. Padmore's Evangelist is morally concerned, flaring into anger at the betrayal, and dismissing Judas with contempt, when a dispassionate approach might be more appropriate.
The soprano, Julia Gooding, is warmly vibrant and humane - earthbound rather than angelic. Contralto Sarah Connolly is, by contrast, a hieratic icon of grief. McCreesh sharply differentiates his two solo-voiced choirs, with the bright sound of the first counterpoised with the mellower tones of the second. Given the small numbers involved, the balance occasionally comes adrift. The all-important chorale that threads its way through the opening chorus, for instance, was inaudible.
Much of it is admirable, though much of it is also flawed. McCreesh claims authenticity for his procedures, though what really matters in the St Matthew Passion, as in any great Bach performance, is the cumulative impact, the ability to judge the relentless, yet measured pace of the work's emotional development. McCreesh often hovers in the moment, rather than seeing the whole. The second half, in particular, progresses by fits and starts when it should be absolutely seamless. He's unfailingly impressive, but you don't emerge from his performance shattered, drained and profoundly moved, as you should.
