Bach's Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, consists of a set of six cantatas, each with recitatives, arias, and chorales. Moreover, some of the music for this most solemn of Christian events was borrowed by Bach from his own secular compositions. Yet it is a unified work, designated by Bach himself as an oratorio, and the biblical narration of the Christmas story is worked into the usual recitative-aria structure. There aren't any melodies in the work that are really among Bach's greatest hits, but the ingenuity of the work as a whole lies in the way it's somehow greater than the sum of its parts. That's the appeal of this version by conductor Stephen Layton, four of his favored soloists, the Choir of Trinity College, and the period-instrument Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: it respects the small scale of the parts but treats the whole with the weight it deserves. Credit for the balance must go to Layton, who has gotten splendid results from the youthful Cambridge choristers in a variety of common repertory works. They enunciate clearly, hit the pitches precisely, and generally seem excited by what they're doing. The always lively Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a perfect partner for the choir, and the soloists engage with the text and convey the feeling that they're in the ballpark of the ones who originally performed the work. There are more daring performances of the Christmas Oratorio on all fronts, but few that make such a satisfying and musical impression.© TiVo

The "Bach Pilgrimage" of conductor John Eliot Gardiner, with his English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, is among the most ambitious musical projects of recent decades: a concert tour devoted to Bach's complete church cantatas, matched to the liturgical year in something like real time, and passing through the cities where Bach lived and worked but also stopping in churches in other countries. The funding itself was a minor miracle. His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, is the first name listed, but corporations also kicked in, and individual donors could help out with single concerts along the way. The recordings designate themselves as live; actually, they represent final dress rehearsals rather than concert performances, but they have that edge-of-the-chair quality that dress rehearsals sometimes attain, and they're not marred by coughs, creaking pews, and doors opening and closing. The performances are, furthermore, not perfect. In this two-disc set of Epiphany cantatas, rounded out by the motet Jesu, meine Freude, soprano Joanne Lunn is severely challenged by the devilish (sorry, JSB, but that's the right word) quick-triplet mode mixtures in the "Wirf, mein Herze" aria in the Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange?, BWV 155 (CD 1, track 4). Gardiner's overall treatment of the cantatas is quiet and reverential, and he can go to extremes in pursuit of this ideal; the bass aria "Ächzen und erbärmlich Weinen" (Groaning and pitiable weeping) in the cantata Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen, BWV 13 (My sighs, my tears) is taken at a grindingly slow tempo and extended to a 10-and-a-half-minute length. Gardiner justifies this decision with reference to symbols of the Cross he finds in the score -- always a risky business. Any complaints one might have, however, are swept aside by the great virtue of these performances -- the intensity of the performers' response to the texts. Gardiner seems to put himself in Bach's shoes as Bach sought to find individual meaning in well-worn Lutheran texts. His observations, expressed in a sort of road diary that serves as booklet notes, are acute, and people will be reading them a century hence to find out what Bach meant to listeners of the early twenty-first century. (They're admirably personal and colloquial -- if you've ever wondered how to say "hair shirt" in German, you can find out from the booklet here.) What's really remarkable, however, is the way Gardiner has involved his performers in his creative response to the texts. The performance of Jesu, meine Freude at the end of disc 2 is one of the very best ever recorded, with absolute conviction from the Monteverdi Choir in singing lines like "Lass den Satan wittern" (Let Satan storm). Those who approach Bach's cantatas from a specifically religious perspective may well find these performances definitive, and they are, from any perspective at all, documents of extraordinary commitment and musical enthusiasm. © TiVo

The Bach cantata pilgrimage of conductor John Eliot Gardiner, with his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, began on Christmas of 1999 and continued through the year 2000. At first the musicians retraced some of Bach's steps through northern Germany, then performed in a variety of churches in England and northwestern Europe, matching the cantatas as closely as possible to the events in the liturgical year for which they were intended. It was an impressive logistical undertaking, supported financially by the Prince of Wales, among others, and the handsomely packaged live recordings that emerged from the project have taken several years to appear. This one is an excellent example of why they were worth the wait. There's nothing so radical about Gardiner's interpretations; he uses a moderate-sized choir at a time when the cutting-edge favors very small groups or even one voice per part, and his soloists, while more than competent, aren't the sort around whom a performance can be organized, as with some of the recent Bach cantata discs directed by Ton Koopman. Where Gardiner excels is in the pure human understanding of the texts Bach sets and of his response to them. Hear the almost sarcastic tone of the opening bass aria of the Cantata No. 181, Leichtgesinnte Flattergeister, BWV 181 (CD 2, track 6, the only possible complaint against the packaging is that there is no full tracklist other than the German and English texts of the cantatas themselves), or the militantly anti-Catholic and anti-"Turkish" (it's not only the Jews who get rough treatment from Bach) Cantata No. 126, "Erhalte uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort," BWV 126. Here Gardiner pushes tenor James Gilchrist to the absolute limit in the at first deceptively prayerful but soon over-the-top aria "Sende deine Macht von oben" (CD 2, track 12); Gardiner's conception of the overall mood rules the interpretation. He expands on those conceptions, taking into account historical and musicological matters, in booklet notes, based on his own journals during the trip, and these are in many cases worth the purchase price by themselves; they offer exceptional syntheses of technical and critical perspectives. Gardiner's Bach series isn't the most "perfect" available, but it may be the most profound. The sound in both these locations (one in the Netherlands, one in Britain) is clear, aided perhaps by backup rehearsal recordings made in case of fluffed notes or coughing audiences. © TiVo

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Recorded live at Pisa Cathedral in 2016, this recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, is of a piece with the touring Bach Cantata Pilgrimage recordings released in the early 2000s: it is rich yet lively, sung with precision yet a total sense of commitment in the moment. The singers -- the Monteverdi Choir of 30 with soloists all drawn from the choir, except for Jesus (Stephan Loges) and the Evangelist (James Gilchrist) -- performed from memory, and the feeling that the text is being communicated directly is even greater than is usual with Gardiner. An unusual feature of the recording is that the soloists are not single per part; the soprano solos are taken by no fewer than five different singers. Several (try Hannah Morrison in "Aus liebe") are lovely, and the effect of a space between the congregational chorales and the focus on an individual soloist is fascinating. The hair-trigger alertness of the chorus in the big numbers like "Sind Blitze, sind Donner in Wolken verschwunden?" is also extremely compelling. Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir offer Bach with the luxury of old-fashioned Romantic versions combined with the agility of historical performance, and they've never done the combination better than they do here. © TiVo

Anna Prohaska asked Wolfgang Katschner and the Lautten Compagney at the outset of the coronavirus crisis whether they shouldn’t spontaneously organize a musical get-together in this period. This has now resulted in "Redemption". This is a sequence of music selected solely from Bach cantatas, compiled in keeping with the aforenamed conceptual association. "Redemption" has multiple meanings, for instance: can music give us consolation in times of sickness and crisis; can it open up emotional and contemplative spaces for us; is it redemptive for musicians to be the “instruments” in engendering music and therefore spirituality… ? Besides Anna Prohaska as soloist and three other singers, "Redemption" features a larger group of musicians – around twenty instrumentalists. These musicians serve a dual role: they expertly accompany the arias that Anna Prohaska sings and they also represent the concept of human interaction and a shared collective experience which has been missing during these times. © Alpha Classics

Bach's 199 surviving sacred cantatas form a repertoire of masterpieces that defy comprehension. It's not just that there are so many of them, it's that every one is unique, exemplified by the seven cantatas on the third volume of John Eliot Gardiner's Bach cantata pilgrimage, three for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity recorded at Tewkesbury Abbey and four for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity recorded at the Blasuiskirche in Muhlhausen. The Tewkesbury cantatas feature a celebratory central choral sung by the strong-voiced Monteverdi Choir in Ein ungefärbt Gemute, BWV 24, a stately aria sung by lush-toned alto Nathalie Stutzman in Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe, BWV 185, and a dancing aria cum trio sonata sung by dulcet-toned soprano Magdalena Kozená accompanied by a wonderfully lyrical obligato bassoon in Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 177. The Muhlhausen cantatas are even richer, with the mournful triple-time chorale that opens Aus dem Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131, and the doleful chorale fantasia for soloists and choir that opens Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten, BWV 93, plus the blissful duet in Siehe, ich will viel Fischer aussenden, BWV 88, sung with pure, clear tone by alto William Towers and soprano Joanne Lunn. While listeners unfamiliar with the cantatas may initially be intimidated by the size and variety of these works, the sheer beauty of Bach's inspired settings will keep pulling them back. As always in his Bach cantata pilgrimage, Gardiner stresses the bright and hopeful over the dark and despairing even in the gloomiest cantatas, and he elicits powerfully affecting but rhythmically flexible playing from the English Baroque Soloists even in the dourest movements. Despite the change in countries and venues, the digital sound here is close enough to spotlight the soloists and distant enough to encompass the ringing chorals. © TiVo

Jeannette Sorrell, baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire, soprano Amanda Forsythe and the music of J. S. Bach create a divine musical partnership. "Heavenly Bach" pairs two of the composer’s most popular cantatas, interspersed with two sublime arias from the St. John Passion. In Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen!, Forsythe’s dazzling virtuosity hits the high notes whilst the secular "Wedding Cantata" exudes a joyous and evocative marriage in springtime, for a result that is heavenly indeed. © AVIE Records