In the 18th century, "well-populated" church music was a self-evident tradition throughout central Germany: church services were embellished along the ecclesiastical year with cantatas appropriate to the liturgy for the glory of God, but also for the joy and "spiritual edification" of the visitors. From this treasure of hitherto unknown Christmas music, four cantatas by Ernst Wilhelm Wolf are presented for the first time on this recording. Wolf worked as court kapellmeister in Weimar, and the fact that Goethe rejected him as "self-indulgent" should not prevent us from admiring him as a very important composer of the transition. Musically, Wolf was greatly influenced by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in the sensitive style and by the works of the Berlin Kapellmeister Carl Heinrich Graun. He was also a prolific composer whose works were received with admiration by his contemporaries. The four cantatas show elements of the early classical and sensitive styles; the cantata choruses are often homophonic and songlike, polyphonic sections rather rare. All the cantatas prove to be individually conceived works that testify to the composer's mastery. Beautiful sounding arias, the naturalness of their expression and the dramatic compression in the individual movements are still convincing today. At the same time, the cantatas bear witness to the high quality of Protestant church music in the period after Johann Sebastian Bach and illustrate the high value of music within the liturgy. Today they can be a welcome addition to the repertoire for the Christmas season. © CPO

To say that Kian Soltani's concerto debut for Deutsche Grammophon packs a punch is something of an understatement, and indeed long before Soltani even enters the fray, given that I'm not sure I've ever heard an orchestra sounding quite so dangerously, growlingly foreboding and theatrical at the opening of Dvořák's Cello Concerto as is heard here from Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin in what was a live performance at the Berlin Philharmonie: markedly slower than the score's metronome marking of 116 to a crotchet; little shivering swells added to the pianissimo crotchets concluding the first phrase; then not just a crescendo up to the first fortissimo statement of the main theme, but also a rushing accelerando; while this revving of the accelerator ultimately lands us smartly at Dvořák's actual tempo marking, the effect is one of being caught up in a lethally super-speed, supremely polished whirlwind. If you're a stickler for keeping to the score then you might balk, but there's no question that it's electrifying stuff. And on that note, remember Karajan's glorious bar 72 injection of an ardent and thoroughly unscripted portamento swoop for DG, back in 1968 with Rostropovich? Well Barenboim's repeated that trick here, and every bit as gloriously. Soltani himself is no less grabbing when he finally makes his entrance, displaying all the golden beauty of tone and poeticism we heard on Home, his recital debut for the label. Indeed the whole concerto represents a compelling combination of distinctive personalities, Soltani's romance coming elegant and precise, softly polished and lyrically singing, against Barenboim's coming ardently soaring one moment and craggily thunderous the next (and on that note, I've equally never heard the second movement's sudden minor-keyed outburst - just before Dvořák quotes his sister-in-law and first love Josefina's favourite song of his, referencing the fact that tragically she was dying as the concerto was being penned - explode in with such force as here). More Soltani-shaped pleasures come via the piercing urgency and biting rhythm he brings to the forceful, dance-like finale, a highlight of which is his lovingly exuberant and tightly together gypsy duet with the first violin; and back in the first movement, his sensitive duetting with the woodwind, who themselves are lovingly picked out by the engineering. In fact the overall engineering is another draw, the Philharmonie sounding wonderfully full and warm. Less enjoyable for some, meanwhile, will be the various rubatos and slackenings of the tempo applied to the softer passages, which can feel as though the breaks are being overly pulled. Soltani sticks with Dvořák for the remainder of the album, teaming up with the Staatskapelle cellists for various shorter pieces: his own transcriptions of the Op. 55 Gypsy Melodies from Songs My Mother Taught Me and the Allegro moderato from Four Romantic Pieces Op. 75, alongside transcriptions of Silent Woods plus the Largo from the ”New World Symphony”. These are all elegantly done, with superb blending and chamber awareness, and once again play to all Soltani's lyrical strengths. They're also all of a similar “smooth classics” mood, which ultimately makes for a less compelling listen than the album's first half, but which no doubt smartly ticks the playlist-friendly box. And while the manner in which the playlist box has been ticked has managed to sell no-one's soul along the way, after such a distinctive and persuasive Dvořák Cello Concerto, I'm hoping that Soltani's next concerto offering can be a meaty double bill. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz

One morning in 1822, Schubert wrote down an enigmatic text in which all his ghosts seem to take shape: wandering, solitude, consolation, disappointed love. Inspired by this dreamlike narrative, Raphaël Pichon, Pygmalion and Stéphane Degout have devised a vast Romantic fresco, combining resurrection of unknown treasures with rediscovery of established masterpieces. © harmonia mundi

With this set of 12 cantatas, a few of them quite short, Dutch historical-instrument conductor Ton Koopman approaches the end of his monumental traversal of the complete Bach cantata corpus. The cantatas here mostly date from the last two decades of Bach's life. By this time Bach had cantatas from earlier cycles ready for most occasions pertaining to the liturgical year. Several of the works here were written for special occasions -- weddings in at least two cases. The orchestration for the most part is large and varied, with several pieces including trumpets and tympani; the Cantata No. 195, "Dem Gerechten muß das Licht," BWV 195, features a dazzling array of strings, oboe, oboe d'amore, transverse flutes, horns, trumpets, bassoon, timpani, and continuo. The result is that these pieces play to the strengths of Koopman's interpretations: the warm, flawless blend of the Amsterdam Baroque Choir and the sharp differentiation of the instruments within what remains a big, festive sound overall. The famous cantata in this group is the Cantata No. 140, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme," BWV 140, with its "Sleepers Awake" chorale and its lovely variations on a pastoral theme. Sample the opening chorus (CD 2, track 1) for an idea of what you can expect in the various large choruses in the lesser-known cantatas in the set: each has its nice textural touches, and not a one gets lost in Koopman's expert interpretation. Hear the "Welt, ade, ich bin dein müde" (World, goodbye, I am tired of you) movement of the Cantata No. 158, "Der Friede sei mit dir," BWV 158, for an example of Koopman at his best: this odd combination of a bass aria with mantra-like interjections of the chorale from the choir's sopranos would throw a lesser conductor. The soloists in this set are also unusually effective. Soprano Sandrine Piau's voice is unhampered by the high pitch Koopman employs, and her soaring lyricism makes an effective foil for the unusual, rather English horn-like timbre of the alto of Bogna Bartosz. There is something a bit cool in Koopman's readings; for deep humanistic insights into Bach's music, the evolving cantata set by John Eliot Gardiner may be preferable. But in the public, festive music heard here, this lion of the historical-performance movement is hard to beat. © TiVo

The cantata Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe (Jesus gathered the twelve to Himself) BWV 22, holds a historic place in Bach’s work. Indeed he composed it while still in Köthen, as an audition piece for the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, and then conducted it on February 7th, 1723, maybe even singing the bass part himself. Famously the city council, unable to convince its preferred composers – Telemann, Graupner and two others –, decided to settle with “mediocre” Bach… The gospel of the day first announces his death and his resurrection by Christ and his disciplines. A modest orchestra: voices, strings, one oboe and continuo, but the musical content is – like in almost all of Bach’s cantatas – amongst the best he’s ever written. For the same celebration, Bach composed a new cantata the following year, Herr Jesu Christ, wahr’ Mensch und Gott (Lord Jesus Christ, true Man and God) BWV 127. But it has almost nothing in common with the previous piece: here Bach offers a very impressive reflection on physical death. Throughout his cantatas he called for a blessed death to free himself from the vicissitudes of life on Earth, but this now reveals how much he may have feared physical death itself. The aria ”Die Seele ruht” is one of these sublime moments suspended in time, an ineffable tintinnabulum, in which the soprano and the oboe dialogue on a harrowing theme while the flutes and string pizzicatos symbolise the passing of time with incredible beauty. Finally it’s with Die Elenden sollen essen (The miserable shall eat) BWV 75 that Bach started off his work in Leipzig, in St. Nicholas Church this time, as the cantatas were alternately performed in both churches. Probably because he wanted to start with a bang, he designed this cantata on a huge scale: fourteen numbers, divided in two parts. Of course Bach would have never been able to produce such vast and powerful partitions on a weekly basis, but there is a real substance to this Passion… and it’s with great passion that Philippe Pierlot, his Ricercar Consort and the soloists perform these masterpieces. © SM/Qobuz

The gestation of this project lasted two years. Anna Prohaska and Julius Drake finally concentrated their research on the themes of Eve, Paradise and banishment. Some songs were obvious choices, such as Fauré’s Paradis, in which God appears to Eve and asks her to name each flower and animal, or Purcell’s Sleep, Adam, sleep with its references to Genesis. But Anna Prohaska also wished to illustrate the cliché of the woman who brought original sin into the world and her status as a tempter who leads man astray, as in Brahms’s Salamander, Wolf’s Die Bekehrte or Ravel’s Air du Feu. In Das Paradies und die Peri, Schumann conjures up the image of Syria’s rose-covered plains. Bernstein also transports us to the desert with Silhouette.. John Milton’s seventeenth-century masterpiece Paradise Lost was the inspiration for Charles Ives and Benjamin Britten, also featured in this very rich programme that constitutes an invitation to travel and reflection. © Alpha Classics

Beethoven composed the oratorio Christus am Ölberge in just "a fortnight, amid all sorts of tumult and other unpleasant and alarming events in my life". It marked the first time since the two "imperial cantatas" of 1790, the Cantata on the Death of the Emperor Joseph II WoO 87 and the Cantata on the Accession of Leopold II WoO 88, that he had embarked on a multi-movement vocal work. Christus am Ölberge was also Beethoven’s first composition on a religious subject and was destined to remain his only oratorio. © Phi