Best Bach St. Matthews Passion

Hello Doug, you may want to have a look at www.jsbach.org and see if they list one by Neville Marriner as I think he did a very good recording of this piece, regards, Richard

There is an excellent recent Harmonia Mundi recording of this work (Herrewghe/Collegium Vocale Gent), typically fine HM sound and an excellent performance, which has a lot of extras with it -- a CD-ROM, a booklet, etc. Another highly regarded one is by John Elliot Gardiner on the Archiv label. If you enjoy the performance you attend (Rilling is pretty good, from his other Bach discs I have) you might be interested in looking for his recordings of the work on Hanssler and Sony Classics (Hanssler is probably a better recording). And I do hope you enjoy the performance at Valparaiso!

There are many excellent recordings of this piece. I agree with Rcprince that Rilling is pretty good but not the best. The piece is so rich and complex that I think it is difficult to list a "best". Those that I have heard and would recommend would be as follows (sort of in order): Gardiner, Richter, Herreweghe, Koopman, Leonhardt, Harnoncourt.