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

What is it about volume 26 of John Eliot Gardiner's cycle of the complete Bach cantatas that makes it special? Is it the works? All seven cantatas on this two-disc set have their individual beauties, but the last -- Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte, BWV 174 -- starts with a magnificent Sinfonia based on the opening movement of the Third Brandenburg Concerto, only with oboes, horns, and organ, and thus has the added benefit of instant recognition. Is it the performances? As always, Gardiner obtains a bright tone and a robust performance from the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, an approach that brings out the best in these seven mostly celebratory works. Or is it the sometimes out-of-tune singing and the occasionally out-of-tune playing? Most of the soloists are fine -- particularly cheerful soprano Lisa Larsson and chesty alto Nathalie Stutzmann -- and some are excellent -- especially soulful tenor Christoph Genz -- but they, along with the choir, do sometimes slip out of tune. And while most of the playing is first rate -- check out the clarity of the strings and the taste of the continuo -- there are moments when the strings or the winds slid out of tune. Still, since these are all live performances recorded with amazing clarity and presence at Holy Trinity Church in Long Melford in June 2000, these flaws are fairly insignificant compared with the performances' many strengths, and anyone who has enjoyed Gardiner's joyful and direct approach to Bach's cantatas will surely enjoy volume 26. © TiVo

Aside from the gargantuan logistical problems of moving a chamber orchestra, chorus, soloists, and conductor, plus recording equipment with engineers and producers every week, the aesthetic challenges of John Eliot Gardiner's Bach cantata pilgrimage must have been colossal. Imagine: every week the musicians had to prepare and present three or more cantatas in performances that would bear repeated listenings at home. And yet Gardiner and his forces seem to have succeeded every time. In the two-disc volume 25 of the series, Gardiner includes three cantatas for the fifth Sunday after Easter and three for the Sunday after Ascension Day, and, as always before, they succeed in not only performing the works with smooth professionalism but also ardent enthusiasm. Take just In allen meinen Taten, BWV 97. Its nine movements are wonderfully varied in tone and setting, but also totally unified through musical means. Gardiner and his forces capture both the variety and the unity of the work. Bass Stephen Loges' melancholy aria "Es kan mir nichts" with obbligato bassoon, tenor Steven Davislim's jaunty aria "Ich trause" with virtuoso solo violin, alto Robin Tyson's haunting recitative Er wolle meiner Sünden, and soprano Katharine Fuge's joyous aria "Ihm hab ich mich ergeben" with a pair of obbligato oboes all form part of an organic whole here. Recorded in vivid sound, these performances will be mandatory listening for anyone who reveres Bach's cantatas. © TiVo

John Eliot Gardiner literally has a lifetime of intimate familiarity with J.S. Bach's six motets without independent instrumental accompaniment; he reports that as a boy chorister of 11 or 12 he knew the treble lines to all of them. That familiarity is evident in these exceptionally insightful and exceptionally well-sung performances with the Monteverdi Choir. The group lives up to its reputation as being in the very highest echelon of choirs worldwide, singing these especially treacherous works with almost superhuman precision, immaculate tone and balance, and infectious, unguarded passion. The singers handle Bach's exquisitely interwoven counterpoint with apparent ease even at the outrageously fast but emotionally appropriate tempos that Gardiner takes. He avoids the academic rigidity that can easily prevail in performances of counterpoint this intricate by always maintaining a dancing sense of lightness and buoyancy. The performances are also characterized by a warm intimacy. That's due at least in part the choir's remarkable control of dynamics; at its quietest moments the music comes across as an almost hushed whisper. That, in combination with the stellar engineering, creates the impression that the listener is being treated to a private performance by singers nearly close enough to reach out and touch. At the same time there is no sense of crowding and the performers have plenty of room for their singing to ring out brilliantly. Gardiner deploys a small continuo group colorfully but discreetly, offering an ideally balanced underpinning for the choir. Listeners who want to hear these small masterpieces need look no further than these exemplary and thoroughly engaging performances. Highly recommended. © 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

Valentin Tournet and his choral and instrumental ensemble, La Chapelle Harmonique (founded in 2017), are newcomers to the French Baroque scene. Here they offer their second recording dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach. This stunning album was recorded in the—almost too—generous acoustics of the Royal Chapel of the Palace of Versailles, where this style would have been unheard of in the time of Louis XV.This joyous and original Latin take on Bach’s Motets contrasts with more introspective listening habits. The six Bach Motets are difficult to define. They evoke searching questions with regard to their attribution and interpretation. Were they all truly composed by Bach? Are they intended for an acapella choir (i.e., unaccompanied)? Should they be supported by basso continuo, or even an organ and instruments?Commonly composed to honour the memory of the deceased and to accompany the raising of the corpse, they are works of incredible musical depth that were admired by Mozart. They combine a certain succinctness with a complexity of writing that specifically enhances the vocal text. The present programme also contains echoes of other works, particularly two choral compositions (composed by Bach’s predecessors and reworked by Bach). © François Hudry/Qobuz

"The St. Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the greatest works in the history of music. Whenever I study this epochal composition, I always ask myself the question: How can a work of music, which is performed each year in thousands of performances, has been scientifically and artistically interpreted for decades, and worshiped for centuries, remain a new, contemporary, and at the same time universal and supreme idea? It can be achieved if that which is defined as established and comprehensive, and appears or is accepted as unshakeable, is set in motion without capping the connections to the work itself and its musical- historical, intellectual and theological foundations", says Hans-Christoph Rademann about one of the monumental sacred works of music history. In November 2020, Rademann and the Gächinger Cantorey ensemble and chorus, together with an extraordinary group of soloists, set out to lend a new and fresh perspective to Bach's timeless masterpiece of raging choirs, intimate chorales, and emotionally charged arias, which, with its drama and pictorial quality, allows the listener to experience the well-known Passion story again and again as something completely new and unheard-of. © Accentus Music

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

Johann Christoph Bach, not to be confused with Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, was Johann Sebastian Bach's first cousin once removed. An organist and ducal employee at Eisenach, he died in 1703 and was thus a good deal older than J.S. Bach. He may well have been among the great man's influences; the works recorded here have a certain combination of intense expressivity and careful structure that brings the younger composer to mind. They do not outwardly sound like J.S. Bach, however; they come from a generation before him and show a different kind of influence from Italian music. Especially as performed here by the English Baroque Soloists under John Eliot Gardiner, with one voice per part in all the music, they sound a bit like Buxtehude's small religious vocal pieces. The motets might be performed by a choir, but the basically declamatory nature of the language works reasonably well in this kind of setting, and the intensely text-centered, reverent approach cultivated by Gardiner presents this music at its best; the atmosphere in most of these works is prayerful and quite intense. Most of the music is based on biblical texts and reflects the fervent, somber brand of Lutheranism associated with the younger Bach cousin, but the finale, Meine Freundin, du bist schön, was apparently a sort of secular wedding cantata. At least it seems to be; not that much is known of this Bach's music, and it's possible that the piece is one of those works in which Eros is used to allegorize the relationship between the soul and Christ. But if so, it's one of the most involved metaphors on record. At the very least, it makes a charming conclusion to a quietly meditative and altogether lovely recording. Any suspicion that Gardiner was trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel after the conclusion of his successful Bach cantata series has proved unjustified; this is a recording that succeeds on its own terms. © TiVo