The 20-year-old Mendelssohn's 1829 resuscitation of Bach's St Matthew Passion is a celebrated historical landmark.
Less well- known is Mendelssohn's later revival of major works by Handel – he even added tableaux vivants to Handel's Israel in Egypt in 1833.
If you’re a stickler for stylistic purity, stay away from Robert King’s reconstruction of Mendelssohn’s updating of this oratorio.
There’s a new overture (Mendelssohn adapted his own Trumpet Overture), instrumental additions (including rich cellos in recitatives), reallocations of arias between solo voices, some cuts, and, of course, the words in German.
READ MORE
But coming from King and his soloists, the whole has a vitality that is well-nigh impossible to resist.
