In this, the sixth volume of John Eliot Gardiner's Bach cantata pilgrimage, Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists, and soloists present three cantatas for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (recorded live in the Jakobskirche in Köthen on September 10, 2000) and three cantatas for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (recorded a week later in the Dreikönigskirche in Frankfurt). As previously in this distinguished series, Gardiner's approach is clearly devotional: no point goes unmade in these purposefully religious works. From the opening Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, BWV 69a, with its festive opening movement to the closing Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 33, with its affecting final chorale harmonization, this disc is compelling and persuasive. In both locations, SDG's sound is startlingly clear yet amazingly atmospheric. © TiVo

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With its forty-five chorale preludes, the Orgelbüchlein bears witness to a mastery of the art of improvisation on the organ, as the congregation heard it at the time before singing the hymn in its turn. It was a tempting experiment to revive this primary function: by collaborating with the combined forces of the Ensemble Vocal Bergamasque and the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame de Paris, Benjamin Alard gives the "little organ book" its full significance and expressive power. © harmonia mundi

With the John Eliot Gardiner "Bach Cantata Pilgrimage" series, as issued on Soli Deo Gloria, all recorded during a live tour and gradually parsed out in packages practically identical in appearance, one can be forgiven for some confusion regarding this series. Although this is Bach Cantatas, Vol. 2, and was recorded in Paris and Zurich in the summer of 2000, the two-disc set is the 24th issue in the series and was not released until the spring of 2010, patiently waiting almost a full decade for its turn in the release sequence. The Paris performance on the first disc features Bach's cantatas for the Second Sunday After Trinity (BWVs 2, 10, and 76) along with Heinrich Schütz's motet "Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes," which shares the same melody as Bach's source for BWV 76. The second, Zurich performance includes Bach's cantatas for the Third Sunday After Trinity, BWV 21 and 135, only, so the program is filled out with a performance of the Triple Concerto in A minor, BWV 1044. Soloists include Stephen Varcoe and Daniel Taylor in Paris and Katharine Fuge in Zurich; oddly, the instrumental soloists in BWV 1044 are not singled out in the package notes, though they are more than likely section leaders from within the English Baroque Soloists. Though top billed, the Monteverdi Choir is heard only intermittently of course, but enough to reserve its rightful place as the star of the show, apart from Gardiner himself.These performances are to some extent conditioned by the vagaries of live recording; the sound in Paris' Basilique Saint-Denis is good but not awesome, whereas in Zurich's Fraumünster Kirche the sound is clearer and has a bit more presence. An important part of the basic concept of the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage was that each concert be given in a different European landmark. Alto Daniel Taylor is not having a particularly good night in Paris, but that's not too much of a distraction; overall the soloists, both instrumental and vocal, acquit themselves well although it's a little hard to hear the harpsichord in the Triple Concerto. All of the performances are crisp and professional, and there is something of a traditional aspect to them; Gardiner clearly prefers a romantic approach in the handling of the chorus and the band is a little bigger than a typical, one-or-two-to-a-part period instrument ensemble. If a listener is already investing in this series, then Soli Deo Gloria's Bach Cantatas, Vol. 2, should more or less deliver what the others in the same series put forth. However, if the listener is only looking for a recording of one or even all of these pieces, weighing one's relative options might not be a fruitless task.© TiVo

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

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

As in his previous volumes of Bach cantatas in this series, John Eliot Gardiner brings a velvet-gloved, yet iron-fisted approach to Bach. His tempos are supple and his lines are radiant, but the singleness of vision and strength of will are inflexible. As always, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists are both formally and expressively under his firm control. This doesn't mean Gardiner won't allow his vocal soloists considerable interpretive leeway. Soprano Gillian Keith and bass Peter Harvey are marvelously free in the duet between the Soul and Jesus in Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn (Walk the Path of Faith) (BWV 152). But the musical context is wholly Gardiner's. The packaging and production values are, as always, superlative. Recorded live in St. Bartholomew's in New York on the Sunday after Christmas, December 31, 2000, the sound here is ideally balanced, perfectly clear, and utterly natural. Unlike most volumes in this series, however, this is a single-disc package, and so it makes a good introduction to both Bach's cantatas and to Gardiner's approach to them for buyers who would like to test the waters without investing too much money. © TiVo