Fascinating like an eighteenth-century restoration of a renaissance church built on gothic foundations: the style of this St John Passion owes little to Bach, much (it seems) to Alessandro Scarlatti, and, though developed by several of Giordani’s contemporaries, will surely strike most of its present-day listeners as highly original. The narrative tends always to arioso-form, as do passages which at the start seem to promise an aria. Despite this, the pacing of the work skilfully avoids monotony, and because one can never tell in advance what moment may bring musical treatment of remarkable beauty, the sense of hill-and-dale (or ‘numbers’ separated by recitative) is replaced by a unity of musical landscape which consistently holds the attention. For example, the words ‘Jesus answered’ (‘Respondit Jesus’) may be set, not as, so to speak, a functional necessity and parenthetic in the narration, but as a lyrical passage for the voice, expressively accompanied. The effect is to preserve and deepen the emotion arising out of the more significant words that come before and after. It seems at first a strange, perplexing procedure, but it draws one in to follow it imaginatively.
Giordani’s dates are 1751-98, and he wrote the Passion as a young man in 1776. He was also a prolific and successful composer of secular music, including opera, which accounts for the courtly, almost Haydnesque grace of some passages – passages which may occur between others of an older religious style, looking back to Scarlatti, Pergolesi and beyond.
The narrative-voice, or Evangelist, is here a contralto, and a fine one too. Maria Jose Trullu has a rich voice, firmly placed and with reserves of power and depth. The voice of Christ is a soprano, and Pilate, the other main soloist, a sonorous bass. Choruses are brief, representing the voices of the crowd, somewhat impersonal but allowed to snarl the mocking ‘Ave, Rex Judaeorum’. Alessandro de Marchi’s direction and the scholarly commentaries supplied in the booklet earn gratitude.'