Collegium Vocale Gent: Bach’s St Matthew Passionconducted by Philippe Herreweghe
The fact that a romantic, of all people, rediscovered a Baroque masterpiece counts among the fascinating twists in the history of music. With his legendary revival in 1829, the young Felix Mendelssohn rescued Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion from over 100 years of obscurity, thereby laying the foundations for the enduring impact this oratorio masterpiece has to this day.
The fact that a romantic, of all people, rediscovered a Baroque masterpiece counts among the fascinating twists in the history of music. With his legendary revival in 1829, the young Felix Mendelssohn rescued Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion from over 100 years of obscurity, thereby laying the foundations for the enduring impact this oratorio masterpiece has to this day.
What Mendelssohn set in motion has led to an increasingly nuanced approach to Bach’s complex music that continues to this day – not least in the field of historical performance practice, of which Philippe Herreweghe is undoubtedly one of the leading exponents. For decades, he has strived to bring Bach’s music to life in all its original power. At the Isarphilharmonie, he and the Collegium Vocale Gent create “a transparent, almost ascetic sound”, as the Münchner Merkur put it following their recent Munich concert in the spring of 2026, and bring the Passion’s haunting dialogue structure to life in all its spiritual depth.
Programme
- Bach: St Matthew Passion, BWV 244
With
- Collegium Vocale Gent
- Mauro Peter, tenor (Evangelist)
- Florian Boesch, bass (Christ)
- Marie Luise Werneburg, soprano I
- Johanna Ihrig, soprano II
- Alex Potter, alto I
- Benno Schachtner, alto II
- Sam Boden, tenor I
- David de Winter, tenor II
- Samuel Hasselhorn, bass I
- Jonas Müller, bass II
- Philippe Herreweghe, conductor
