The Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble presents the St Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastiani (1622 83), who was Kantor at Königsberg Cathedral for a little over a dozen years before becoming Kapellmeister at the court of the Elector of Brandenburg. Das Leyden und Sterben unsers Herrn und Heylandes Jesu Christi nach dem heiligen Matthaeo was published at Königsberg in 1672; Paul O’Dette praises the score ‘not only for the lyrical beauty of the music and the rich instrumental scoring of viols and violins used to accompany the Evangelist and Christ respectively, but also for Sebastiani’s introduction of Lutheran chorales at dramatically strategic moments throughout the story, the first known use of multiple chorales in a Passion setting’.

An instrumental ensemble of two violins, four violas da gamba and continuo features prominently in sinfonias and interludes, and also accompanies recitatives for the characters of the Passion (violins without viols when Christ sings), whereas five-part choruses are in the stile antico. The narrative flows with a smooth sense of theatrical engagement, with the singers (both individually and as an ensemble) and the instrumentalists meshed to each other’s every musical gesture.

Colin Balzer’s Evangelist is a compassionate storyteller, Christian Immler performs Jesus’s lines with eloquent authority and the soprano solo chorales are sung brightly by Ina Siedlaczek (accompanied poignantly by four-part viols). Led by theorbists O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs with a vivid emotional sweep to proceedings, the Bostonians have a clear edge over the relaxed sublimity of the Ricercar Consort’s 1995 version.