Karl Richter (1926-1981), the world-renowned Bach specialist, recorded the St Matthew Passion at the splendid Benedictine abbey of Ottobeuren with his Munich Bach Chorus, the Munich Boys’ Chorus, his Munich Bach Orchestra and the outstanding soloists Peter Schreier (Evangelist), Ernst Gerold Schramm (Jesus), Siegmund Nismgern (Judas) as well as Helen Donath, Julia Hamari, Walter Berry and Horst Laubenthal. Director Hugo Käch took the cross as his main motif for his stage setting by using a gigantic cross above the performers to suggest menace and oppression as well as protection. Richter - he was born in Thuringia and studied in Dresden and Leipzig - absorbed the Bach tradition at its source, in the cities where the composer had lived and worked.