Ex Cathedra, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Apr 13 2009 by Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

Symphony Hall’s annual Good Friday presentations of Bach’s St Matthew Passion have long been the centrepiece of many people’s Easter.

Over the years we have heard performances from the London Bach Choir, the CBSO, the Birmingham Bach Choir, and now it was the turn of Ex Cathedra to attract a full, willing house last Friday afternoon.

Jeffrey Skidmore knows this shattering music intimately, and he imparts his love of it so well to his performing forces. Here Ex Cathedra was joined by its Baroque Orchestra boasting an impressive array of names, and it was scintillating to relish here the variety of oboes responding to Bach’s detailed demands, the rasping double-basses, and a viola da gamba which delivered the usually purgatorial solos for this instrument without any penitential grittiness.

Poor programme-compilation made it difficult to distinguish who was singing which solo in Bach’s resourcefully stereophonic score, but some wonderful tones rang out which could only emanate from the eloquent soprano Natalie Clifton-Griffith, and Jeremy Budd was a gripping Evangelist.

But head and shoulders above everybody here was the Christus of Eamonn Dougan, incisive yet compassionate. For some reason he was detailed also to sing bass solos after the Crucifixion. I’ve never encountered this before.

To sum up: this was an account rich in musical values. Its emotional impact, with little sense of release at the end, was minimal.