Benedikt Kristjansson, Sergey Malov, Ensemble Continuum - Judas - Arias and Recitatives by J.S. Bach

The tenor Benedikt Kristjansson has his own view of the biblical figure of Judas, who has imprinted himself on the collective memory of Christianity as the arch-villain. He wants to see him not only as the explicitly negative figure responsible for Jesus' death, but as someone who played his part in the inevitable path of sacrificing the Messiah and thus in the core of Christian teaching. Kristjansson also has his own view of Johann Sebastian Bach. For his picture of Judas, he has chosen arias and recitatives from his oeuvre.

The tenor Benedikt Kristjansson gets prime billing, and rightly so; he is magisterial in this creative and superbly paced album that reconfigures the Passion narrative. [�] against the tantalising storytelling and emotional sincerity of his instrument, [�] Kristjansson is less singer, more musician � and I write that as an entirely good thing � Gramophone