Though no Baroque specialist, Sir Simon Rattle makes something of a specialty of the St. Matthew Passion, Bach’s sublime tapestry of spiritual meditation and Bible readings set to music with spare Lutheran eloquence. His first time around, with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2010, Rattle collaborated with Peter Sellars, the classical scene’s erstwhile enfant terrible, now its Yoda, on a ritualized concert staging that had performers and viewers in tears. Rattle went so far as to chat the concerts up as the most important endeavor of his career. This season, newly installed as chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, he has reassembled several (though not all) of the Berlin soloists but jettisoned the stage action, which those who can’t do without them can easily find on video. —Matthew Gurewitsch