In his day, Karl Richter was considered a Bach ‘specialist.’ We accord that title nowadays, if at all, to purveyors of period performance practice–and rightly so. But there’s something to be gained by appreciating earlier conceptions of how this music should go. If you favor a more ‘traditional’ approach to Bach’s sacred music, featuring a large chorus, modern instruments and ‘operatic’-style singers, then you can’t do better than Richter’s 1964 account of the St. John Passion.