Beginning his review of the original issue of this recording, on four LPs, Trevor Harvey wrote: ''There are those (not necessarily concert-goers) who attend a performance of this work every Passion Sunday and expect a devotional performance that will bring them metaphorically, if not actually, to their knees. This performance is for them. But should not, you may ask, that be exactly what a performance of the St Matthew Passion should do? Not quite, I think, especially if it involves emotion at the cost of any intellectual quality: that is, if it is performed in such an un-Bachian way as it is given here.'' He was comparing it with LP versions by Munchinger (Decca—nla) and Harnoncourt (Teldec) and it did not survive the comparison unscathed, being described as a ''romantic approach'' and ''a nineteenth-century attitude to Bach's Passion music''.
Of the three alternative versions offered for comparison with this CD issue, the one by Willem Mengelberg on Philips, taken from a live performance given on Palm Sunday in 1939 in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, is closest to Karajan's old-fashioned approach to the work. However, the music is severely cut and the performance disfigured by exaggerated rallentandos and the recording is crackly and oddly balanced. Despite some fine contributions from the soprano, Jo Vincent and the Evangelist, Karl Erb (with harpsichord continuo!) and Mengelberg's obvious sincerity and commitment, this reissue must remain a specialist's item. Karl Richter's Archiv Produktion recording from Munich, his last of a major vocal work by Bach before his death in 1981, is basically in the same tradition, emphasizing the music's grandeur and solemnity at the expense of lightness of touch, despite paying lip-service to baroque performing practice: no shortage of ponderous tempos and rallentandos, but a fine Evangelist in Peter Schreier and Christus in Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. The third, by Philippe Herreweghe and La Chapelle Royale recorded by Harmonia Mundi in Bruges and with comparatively unglamorous soloists (apart, perhaps, from the admirable alto, Rene Jacobs), is given on 'authentic' instruments and in low pitch (but with female sopranos), and is the most stereophonically aware of the four. It is, of course in a different category. Trevor Harvey said, ''I like it greatly and it is my favourite of current CD versions of the work''; my knowledge of these is less extensive than his, but from what I do know, I would agree.
The good points about the Karajan version are the Evangelist of Peter Schreier and the Christus of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, both, obviously, in younger voice than with Richter, and, generally, the other soloists, although words do not always come through clearly. Its less attractive features have perhaps, been dwelt on sufficiently, but of the three 'romantic' versions of the St Matthew Passion under consideration this is the one I would prefer to live with if I had to choose. It sounds well in its own way, after 16 years, and is immaculately presented, as one would expect.'