I’ve always liked to think that, when it comes to artistic performance, comparisons are odious (or oderous, as Dogberry had it). There is one glory of the sun and another of the moon, etc. A performer should be judged on what they do on one occasion, how it speaks to their audience, and not by saying that they’re better or worse than someone else.

Was it a risk to attend a third Irish Baroque Orchestra Matthew Passion in as many years, given that previous indelible interpretations had come from Helen Charlston, Hugh Cutting and Nick Pritchard? Not really, because the shaping hand of Peter Whelan, musicianship incarnate, was bound to give us the connected dramatic arc in Bach's greatest of masterpieces as usual.