The 20-year-old Mendelssohn's 1829 resuscitation of Bach's St Matthew Passion is a celebrated historical landmark.
Less well- known is Mendelssohn's later revival of major works by Handel – he even added tableaux vivants to Handel's Israel in Egypt in 1833.
If you’re a stickler for stylistic purity, stay away from Robert King’s reconstruction of Mendelssohn’s updating of this oratorio.
There’s a new overture (Mendelssohn adapted his own Trumpet Overture), instrumental additions (including rich cellos in recitatives), reallocations of arias between solo voices, some cuts, and, of course, the words in German.
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But coming from King and his soloists, the whole has a vitality that is well-nigh impossible to resist.
