Stephen Layton conducts the St John Passion
Stephen Layton's annual Good Friday performance of one of Bach's great choral masterpieces at St John's Smith Square has become one of the mainstays of London's musical calendar. This year, however, his performance of the B Minor Mass was anticipated by a performance of the St John Passion exactly a week earlier at The Barbican with Polyphony, the Academy of Ancient Music and Ian Bostridge, as part of Bostridge's "Homeward Bound" festival.
"Whenever you're in the presence of the vocal ensemble Polyphony and their conductor Stephen Layton you begin to understand what authenticity is really about. And it has little to do with period performance. ...the authenticity here went deeper, to the core of Bach's responses to the Easter story, and to the beating heart of his musical language."
Click here to read Hilary Finch's review for The Times in full.
