Gabriel Jackson’s compelling new Passion at Merton College, Oxford

By David Truslove, 06 April 2014

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Reviewed at Merton College Chapel, Oxford on 4 April 2014

Jackson, The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ (World Premiere)

Works by Bach

Hough, Other (World Premiere)

Laukvik, Other (World Premiere)

Martin, Other (World Premiere)

Oxford Choir of Merton College

William Whitehead, Organ

Emma Tring, Soprano

Nick Pritchard, Tenor

Benjamin Nicholas, Conductor

Les Arts Florissants play an abbreviated Christmas Oratorio in Paris

Simon Thompson, 13th December

Vigour and vibrato: Les Arts Florissant bring gallic refinement to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Philharmonie de Paris.

****1

Academy of Ancient Music delivers a majestic Messiah

Charlotte Gardner, 16th December

Laurence Cummings and the AAM serve up Messiah-shaped serenity at the Barbican.

****1

Bernstein’s devastating double bill of raw emotion cuts to the bone

Stephen Pritchard, 10th October

Henry Neill gives a devastating performance as Sam in Trouble in Tahiti in The Royal Opera’s Bernstein double bill in the Linbury Theatre.

****1

Bach cantatas, American spirituals, global calamity

Kurt Gottschalk, 21st May

The Gospel according to Peter Sellars: an intermingling of Bach’s cantatas and American spirituals depicts an environmental message that the impending end won’t be personal, but global.

***11

Hymns of praise: a stirring climax to Schiff's Mendelssohn cycle

Peter Quantrill, 26th April

Schiff takes the long view in Mendelssohn's unfashionable masterpiece.

****1

A rare Handel pastoral ode at Carnegie Hall

Edward Sava-Segal, 26th October

Dinis Sousa conducts the combined forces of the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir in L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato.

****1

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David Truslove

After many years as a musician – conducting choirs, singing as a lay clerk at Winchester Cathedral and an involvement in education, David now writes programme notes, occasionally composes and enjoys a busy schedule of reviewing.