As usual, Mr. Wachner, conducting from the organ, whipped up plenty of drama, though he used even smaller forces than Tenet: essentially, a vocal quartet on either side of the altar, doubling as choristers and soloists; an Evangelist (Timothy Hodges) in the pulpit; and 12 instrumentalists. Still, there was not a sense of directness or intimacy like that achieved by Tenet in its peregrinations, and Trinity’s two quartets, widely separated, lacked a comparable unity and force.

I unfortunately missed the first of this year’s New York performances, on Feb. 9, with Ted Sperling conducting MasterVoices at Carnegie Hall. It must have been quite a spectacle, a curious mix of the old-fashioned and the newfangled that could only have suggested the gamut of performance techniques and styles to follow. The performance celebrated the 75th anniversary of MasterVoices, which was founded by Robert Shaw in 1942 as the Collegiate Chorale. But Mr. Sperling used a full complement of 125 singers, as Shaw would probably not have done in Bach, and he set this hefty choir against the period instruments of New York Baroque Incorporated.

What’s more, MasterVoices performed the work in a modern English translation by Michael Slattery, who also sang the role of the Evangelist, and invited the audience to sing along in the chorales — practices that Shaw, who worked on his own translations over the years and favored directness of communication, would undoubtedly have endorsed. (Mr. Slattery, like Shaw, referred in his translation not to “the Jews,” but to “the people.”)

Also working with sizable forces, Dennis Keene conducted his fine Voices of Ascension Chorus and Orchestra at the Church of the Ascension in Greenwich Village in a throwback performance of sorts, on March 30. Though it is no longer what we are used to in today’s mainstream, historically informed accounts, the beefy sound of Mr. Keene’s 37-voice choir and his orchestra of modern instruments offered gratifications of their own, at least for a listener who came to Bach in a different era.

Mr. Keene had a superb Jesus in the bass-baritone Kevin Deas, and a terrific alto soloist in Avery Amereau, the only female singer in the performances I heard to venture the low-lying aria “Es ist vollbracht” (“It is accomplished”), accompanied by viola da gamba. Ms. Amereau is herself something of a welcome throwback at a time when countertenors have all but displaced contraltos in early music.