Conductor John Eliot Gardiner, said England's Independent newspaper, "has had the last laugh" -- Vol. 1 of his Bach cantata series was named Record of the Year at the 2005 Classic FM Gramophone Awards in London, after the big Deutsche Grammophon label pulled out of the project and dropped Gardiner just before it got underway in 2000. No doubt a bit of gloating is appropriate along with justified satisfaction in a tough job well done -- Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists undertook a "Bach cantata pilgrimage," singing all of Bach's cantatas on their liturgically appropriate dates while making a grand tour of acoustically appropriate European churches, many of them with links to the original circumstances in which Bach worked. The recordings, Gardiner said, were "a corollary of the concerts, not their raison d'être" prior to each night's concert, engineers recorded the final rehearsal in situ. By the time these recordings were made in London, the concert series was well under way, and, in the words of bass Dietrich Henschel, the performers "had become spiritually familiar with one another." The results, issued on Gardiner's own SDG label, fully live up to the awards hype. Gardiner's interpretations, though they fall under the historical-performance classification, are personal, subjective, dramatic, and romantic. The program naturally coheres thanks to the common origins of the works in the phases of the liturgical year around which Bach organized his thinking (six cantatas are presented on two discs, three for the Feast of St. John the Baptist in mid-June and three for the first Sunday after Trinity), and every element of the sumptuous booklet presentation contributes to an appreciation of Bach's religious language, as audiences in German churches of the eighteenth century would have understood it. So Gardiner has indeed had the last laugh. But perhaps he would be the first to concede that the difficult birth of this project helped him push classical music toward its future, and even that the music is perhaps better, more urgent, than it might otherwise have been. In place of what would have been a series of implacably standardized albums on Deutsche Grammophon, we will now have releases that are individual, committed, and free. Gardiner's liner notes are taken from journals he wrote during the Bach pilgrimage, and they help bring home the immediacy and excitement of this project. The next step, as recordings like this move online, will be to turn this kind of journal into a blog. The old superstructure of the classical recording industry is collapsing into ruin, but this recording provides some of the clearest testimony yet that new and exciting small enterprises will fill the void. © TiVo

The 22nd and final volume in Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir's series of recordings of Bach's cantatas includes two of his final Lutheran cantatas, all four of his short Catholic masses based on movements taken from earlier cantatas, and an early secular version of one of the sacred cantatas plus arrangements of two movements of the other sacred cantata by Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann. And like every other volume in this series, it is a thorough-going triumph. In the extremely well-known Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A mighty fortress is our God) BWV 80, Koopman and his forces turn in a performance as celebratory as it is soulful. In the extravagantly festive Freue dich, erlöste Schar (Be happy, saved crowd) BWV 30 -- or in the equally extravagantly festive Angenehmes Wiedrau (Most charming Wiedrau) BWV 30a as it's known in its secular transformation -- their performances are as sublime as they are joyous. In all four masses, their performances are as devotional as they are musical. And in W.F. Bach's take on his father's music, their performances are as insightful as they are individualistic. Anyone who enjoys Bach's music will enjoy this volume, or, for that matter, any other volume in Koopman's cantata series. If you can only collect one cycle of Bach's cantatas, this is the one to get. As T.S. Eliot once said in another context, Antonie Marchand's sound is here, now, always. © TiVo

Download not available

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

Barnaby Smith is best known as the leader of the small ensemble Voces8, but he is also an accomplished countertenor who, in 2021, released a popular album of arias simply titled Handel. That whetted listener's appetites for more, and this 2023 release, similarly titled Bach, delivers. Smith's voice is perhaps even stronger than it was on the earlier release, though it's impressively creamy and sweet at the top, it isn't terribly powerful in the middle ranges. In Bach, power across the board matters less than in Handel, and Smith is beautifully suited to the warmth of the music. The program loosely traces the liturgical year in a way that allows Smith to feature a number of Bach's greatest hits, and this works well. The match between Smith and the Illyria Consort under leader and violinist Bojan Čičić is ideal; Čičić's is a small ensemble, and it fits the dimensions of Smith's voice perfectly. There are two complete cantatas, plus some well-known arias from the Mass in B minor, BWV 232, the Passion settings, and the Easter and Christmas oratorios. The version of the Cantata No. 82, BWV 82 ("Ich habe genug"), is the one for alto made by Bach himself in the 1730s, and Smith is memorable indeed. Smith is a student of Andreas Scholl and has the same orientation toward vocal beauty, even if not quite (yet) the blooming power. The future of countertenor singing is in good hands here in a Bach album of great general appeal.© James Manheim /TiVo

Download not available

The three Bach cantatas presented on this album belong to the composer’s Weimar period (where he lived and worked from 1708 to 1717), written between 1711 and 1714. Bach was still a young composer then, but the full body of his artistry is already present, and one can but shake the head in disbelief: where did the fellow find the source of such intense emotion, such harmonic and melodic boldness? The beginning of "Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten" ("Yield now, troubling shadows") unfolds a succession of harmonies which seem to have no logical link with each other, some kind of non-tonality – this being the way the composer describes in music the aforementioned lugubrious shadows. Arias alternately heartbreaking and tender, instrumental inventiveness, you name it, Bach has it. Soprano Carolyn Sampson, accompanied by the Freiburger Barockorchester (together with baritone Andreas Wolf for the cantata "Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn"), lends her voice with dedication to the music, combining the teachings of historically informed performance with a solid sense of emotion, indispensable for such masterpieces. © SM/Qobuz

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

What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is that rarest of rare things: a genuine world-premiere recording of a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach appropriately entitled Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn' (All with Got and Nothing Without). A single-movement cantata setting of a birthday ode for Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar composed in 1713, the work was discovered in the collection of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in June 2005. Searching for source documentation of German music during the Baroque period, musicologist Michael Maul found the anonymous manuscript and immediately identified Bach's characteristically elegant soprano clef sign. In this recording by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, violinists Alison Bury and Kati Debretzeni, violist Katherine McGillivray, cellist Alison McGillivray, organist Silas John Standage, and lutinist David Miller, Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn' receives a deeply affectionate, profoundly dedicated, and wonderfully musical performance.However, because the work lasts only 12:20 and there were no other Bach premieres to fill up the disc, the remainder of the program consists of 10 movements drawn from various Bach sacred cantatas performed by the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists, and a host of vocal and instrumental soloists all under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner. Although the prospect of 10 seemingly random movements might appear daunting at first, they are in fact arranged into a kind of pastiche cantata of amazing aesthetic effectiveness. More importantly, the tender and intimate interpretations of Gardiner and his forces make each moment of each movement astonishingly emotionally affecting. Monteverdi Productions' sound is warm and close.© TiVo

Download not available

Download not available