Karajan’s 1950 live performance of the St Matthew Passion has always sat on the periphery of the work’s vast discography, not least because the broadcast tapes from Vienna radio have – until now – never been attended to sufficiently. In this meticulous and opulent Andante production, the transfers are quite revelatory. They capture the pioneering zeal which accompanied the bi-centennial Bach celebrations in Vienna. The St Matthew received some notable attention from 1727 to 1950 but history may well relate that Fritz Lehmann (his 1949 live performance has also been re-mastered) and Herbert von Karajan were among the first to present the piece (uncut) as kapellmeister and maestro in tandem: religiosity alongside contemporary interpretative ambitions, namely a dramatic secularity and intensity that, to a certain extent, consolidated the post-war tradition – for both the mainstream and ‘authentic’ viewpoints.

Karajan, astonishingly, performed the B minor Mass six days later in the Bachfest (and recorded it two years later in the famous EMI ‘tale of two cities’) but the St Matthew is the superior, more dramatically satisfying achievement. The attention to phrasing, the poise of Anton Heiller’s discreet continuo and the beauty of the flute playing still ring in my ears. The Vienna Symphony are highly responsive throughout.

As I observed in ‘Collection’ (4/04), the Evangelist, Walther Ludwig, communicates events with great panache but by the end you can hear his discipleship under strain (not just technically) in ways which are entirely absent from Helmut Krebs’s captivating and glowing ardour for Lehmann. However, where Lehmann is restrained, Karajan is always bringing an incisive musical answer to the particulars of every single movement. He leads his committed but uneven Singverein to the edge; the crowd scenes may lack the punch of the young professional choirs of the past 20 years but there is a huge range here from anarchic abandon to haloed mystery, the latter typically conveyed in the gentle caressing of interpolations and shadowy chorales.

Enduring above all here is Kathleen Ferrier, in her finest Bach legacy. ‘Buss und Reu’ is as imploring, supple and seasoned as one could imagine. Her ‘Erbarme dich’, supported by exquisite violin playing, is a deeply moving journey in itself. Ferrier is suitably matched by Irmgard Seefried’s elegant and precise soprano (far better here than for Richter in 1958).

Karajan’s command of action and contemplation is almost complete. This is in no small measure due to the lack of homogeneous beauty for its own sake, something which blights his self-conscious and comparatively bland studio reading from 1972. Paul Schoeffler’s Christus may be fairly rough and ready but there is a genuine human sadness which the glamorous studio never caught (‘Und ging hin ein wenig’ is just such an arioso). One could cite many more such atmospheric moments, usually catalysed by Karajan’s fascinating combination of the humble (yes, humble) and contained church musician with an unpredictable and emotional white heat.

The documentation is typically wide-ranging and comprehensive, as befits Andante’s admirable if short-lived dream to honour great historical recordings with an object of beauty. The interest of the contents cannot be commented upon as this writer was one among a transatlantic team of contri-butors, including Tim Page and producer Gottfried Krauss.