Comparisons can be odious but are sometimes inevitable. For donkey’s years it has been possible to pick up at a bargain price the excellent recording of the St John Passion by Stephen Cleobury’s Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and the Brandenburg Consort (first issued on Columns Classics in 1996, it has been reissued cheaply on at least two labels in umpteen different editions since). It remains one of the finest recordings of its type – an all-male church choir with boy trebles, a top-notch period-instrument orchestra and first-class soloists. This new live recording was made 20 years later in the chapel at King’s during two concerts.

Cleobury’s newest incarnation of the choir is accompanied adroitly by the Academy of Ancient Music, and the largest-scale collective moments are flawless: every strand of detail in ‘Herr, unser Herrscher’ is delineated impeccably, with the AAM’s graceful strings and perfectly balanced oboes giving nuanced support to the choir (the boys’ melismatic singing is shaped articulately); there is less sonorous density and dramatic tension than in the 1996 recording but perhaps crisper precision and clarity. Turba choruses are paced sagely, chorales are uncomplicated (if perhaps a touch perfunctory) and ‘Ruht wohl’ has sincere directness. James Gilchrist’s compassionate Evangelist, Roderick Williams’s animated ‘Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen’ (with whispered ‘Wohin!’ interjections from the surefooted choir), Iestyn Davies’s sublime ‘Es ist vollbracht!’ (a poignant dialogue with gambist Liam Byrne) and Sophie Bevan’s lithesome ‘Zerfliesse, mein Herze’ (lovely conversational interplay between the quartet of flutes and oboes da caccia) will be sufficient reasons alone to persuade many of us to pick up a copy.

Marc Minkowski’s recording, made around a concert performance in Lyon, takes a radically different approach in just about every respect. He explains in an illuminating interview that he ‘sought to gather together eight distinct voices that would form a genuine ensemble and could surmount without apparent effort the technical and expressive difficulties of the arias. All of them have a career in the opera house, but all of them have been singing Bach since childhood: Bach is their first language.’ In the event, the eight-strong ensemble is unerringly committed to text in ‘Herr, unser Herrscher’, which is taken quickly by Minkowski and played vividly by Les Musiciens du Louvre, including the extra thump of the contrabassoon as added by Bach in 1749. Moreover, the rapid narrative from Lothar Odinius’s lively if somewhat dry Evangelist and rapid turba choruses means that there is seldom a dull moment in the scenes detailing Christ’s trial and condemnation (for example, the crowd is frantic in ‘Wäre dieser nicht ein Übeltäter’, their rushed shouts of ‘Kreuzige ihn’ sound credibly vengeful and the rolling dice in ‘Lasset uns den nicht zerteilen’ has seldom been illustrated more clearly by the instrumental bass line). Reflective spirituality and poetic beauty seem to be glossed over in recitatives, although chorales are always blended sweetly.

Minkowski’s willingness to ask fresh questions certainly avoids complacency, although the most explosive elements of the performance tend to be stimulating rather than satisfying. Nevertheless, moments of profound beauty include Felix Speer’s gentle ‘Betrachte, meine Seel’ leading into Colin Balzer’s softly cathartic ‘Erwäge’, and the last furlong of the work turns out to be deeply moving: Delphine Galou’s heartfelt ‘Es ist vollbracht!’, Christian Immler’s articulate singing in juxtaposition to the underlying chorale in ‘Mein teurer Heiland’ and the sustained beauty of phrasing in ‘Ruht wohl’ are all judged beautifully.