Bach: Chistmas Cantatas

Album review

This is a collection of three rather dusty recordings from the former East Germany, originally issued by the state monopoly VEB Schallplatten Berlin and assembled on one disc by the inveterate German recyclers at Berlin Classics. They're not state of the art now, and they weren't state of the art in the early '80s when they first appeared. They do, however, feature some terrific performers of that era and are worth the time of admirers of the musicians involved. The most venerable, if not the most famous, are the boys of the Thomanerchor Leipzig, a chorus under the direction of Bach himself once upon a time. They are unusually large for a boys' choir, with some 90 members, and their sound is well controlled considering all the challenges involved, with a creamy richness in counterpoint to the "purity" of boy sopranos. American soprano Arleen Augér was a strong Bach interpreter but seems somewhat ill at ease in these recordings. The presence of prolific tenor Peter Schreier, near the top of his powers, may be enough to recommend this disc by itself; he combines a direct response to the text with an intelligent elucidation of the counterpoint that underlies even straightforward Bachian melody. It's a model of Bach singing. The Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum under Hans-Joachim Rotzsch, a veteran Bach conductor, had the overly sweet Baroque sound that has since become rarer, but the group plays cleanly and does not interfere with the singers in any way. The only serious problem is the sound, which is harsh and seemingly untouched by remastering, but this is a decent collection of Bach Christmas-season cantatas for those who like them old school. There is no booklet or any explanatory text at all, and no texts for the cantatas. The texts of these well-known cantatas, though, are not hard to find online.

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