Historically informed performance has, over past decades, vividly enriched our understanding of early music. And yet generally the authenticity goes only so far. For much of the music performed was meant not for concert performance – nor, indeed, the recording studio – but for worship.This is not to say a Mass setting or Passion cannot be profound when divorced from its original context: it can. But that was never the intention and something is lost. The Dunedin Consort’s new recording of Bach’s St John Passion, our Recording of the Month, helps reveal just what that is (a topic David Vickers explores further in his feature). The Passion was a communal act, ‘designed to involve the listener…intensely, both as part of a congregation and individually’ (as John Butt writes in the booklet-notes). Integral to the whole were hymns, intercessions and a sermon, all of which are also offered by the Dunedin Consort’s release.

But while this is something relatively rare on record, it’s not of course rare live. In cathedrals, churches and chapels, professional and skilled amateur choirs alike regularly sing sacred music as intended. It’s not a concert, it is an act of worship (but a spiritual space welcoming of everybody), and the sole reason many of the world’s leading choirs who regularly grace our pages exist. It’s a living tradition, with choral commissions among the most active areas of new music; it also offers an unparalleled musical education to the next generation. Can you think of any other field where such excellence takes place day in, day out, offered (collection plate aside) for free? And yet I’m constantly surprised by how few people go to hear it. I hope you’ll buy the Dunedin Consort’s recording and enrich your understanding of Bach’s St John Passion. And then, if you don’t already do so, attend a nearby Evensong and support (and enjoy) this most remarkable of musical traditions.

Of course, I realise I’m on shaky ground writing this when our cover (Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring) celebrates a work invariably taken out of context and transferred from ballet theatre to concert hall, but that’s 
a discussion for another day…

martin.cullingford@haymarket.com