This is a straight re-release of Auvidis-Astrée E8555; indeed,
the jewel-case and the CD itself are the Astrée originals, newly
wrapped in the cardboard outer sleeve used for all these Naïve
Baroque Voices recordings. Those recordings from this series which
have so far come my way – Handel’s Trionfo del Tempo e del
Disinganno (OP30440, 2 CDs) (see
review) and Monteverdi Madrigals Book V (OP30445),
both directed by Rinaldo Alessandrini – have been excellent and
the new recording is no exception.
These may not be Bach’s best-known works but you
can’t go wrong with JSB – no wonder that so many jazz musicians
adore him – and you won’t find a single dud among the Cantatas.
It was with good reason that Schmieder placed the Cantatas first
in his BWV catalogue. If I ever feel a bit down in the mouth,
listening to a Bach Cantata is a sure-fire remedy, and the new
recording will serve better than most in that respect. Even
with so many fine Bach Cantata recordings which have appeared
since 1996 – Gardiner, Suzuki and Koopman chief among them –
at its new price this is as clear a Bargain of the Month as
any. If you don’t want to bother reading the rest of the review,
just place your order.
The connection between these Cantatas is twofold:
they were all first performed in 1725 and they all feature the
small cello or violoncello piccolo. It would appear that Bach
had access to the services of a performer on this instrument
in the first half of that year. (See Boyd M, The Master Musicians:
Bach, London: Dent, 1983, 1990, pp.133-4, for this and similar
examples of fortuitous instrumental availability.) On this recording
the instrument is in the capable hands of the conductor, Christophe
Coin.
By coincidence, these Cantatas also relate to second-best
celebrations – BWV41 to New Year’s Day rather than the Circumcision,
also celebrated on January 1st, BWV6 and BWV68 to
the second days of two major festivals. There is nothing second-best
about the music, however, or the performances.
John Eliot Gardiner’s performances on his own SDG
label are more logically coupled: BWV6, for example, with other
Eastertide Cantatas on a reasonably-priced 2-CD set (SDG128).
Some may prefer this kind of association: I must admit myself
to liking the convenience of the DGG Archiv boxes of Karl Richter’s
versions, the Easter Cantatas collected on 439 374 2 (5 CDs
for around £27) and the Ascension, Whitsun and Trinity Cantatas
on 439 380 2 (6 CDs around £32). Better value still for the
completist is the set of 75 Cantatas on 439 368 2 (26 CDs for
around £130).
Those Richter performances have worn pretty well,
too, though they inevitably sound a little four-square by comparison
with Coin or Gardiner. They’re not really sluggish, though,
just a little more expansive – Richter’s BWV6 takes 20:28 against
Coin’s 19:18 and his BWV68 runs for 17:52 against Coin’s 16:14.
With superb soloists such as Edith Mathis, Peter Schreier and
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, these Richter versions are by no means
to be dismissed. I certainly shan’t be jettisoning them any
time soon – I may even add the Advent/Christmas box (439 369
2) which I never got round to buying (4 CDs for around £21)
– but I suspect that this Naïve reissue will be a more frequent
visitor to my CD player.
The festive opening of BWV41 takes a little time
to get off the ground, the chorus not quite together at first,
but matters soon improve. Coin does not opt for the one-voice-per-part
theory but neither his medium-sized choir nor the instrumentalists
ever swamp the music. The soloists are well set back on the
sound stage, which is better than having them too close. The
very names of the soloists are almost a guarantee of quality
singing. Andreas Scholl in particular – a pluralist in recordings
of the Bach Cantatas – equals his performances of this repertoire
with Herreweghe and Koopman. I don’t mean to disparage the other
soloists when I say that his appearance, on track 3 – his sole
appearance on the CD – almost eclipses their performances. The
instrumental playing is also good, small niggles about the trumpets
apart. The good burghers would have gone home contended to their
Mittagessen if the performance they heard on 01.01.1725 was
as good as that here.
The Gospel for Easter Monday relates the strange
story of the appearance of Jesus to the travellers on the road
to Emmaus. The opening Chorale of BWV6 sets the words of the
two followers, bidding the mysterious stranger to stay with
them as evening approaches and the remainder of the work takes
the form of a meditation on and expansion of those words by
the soprano, bass and tenor, before the final Chorale which
extends the initial supplication to a prayer for protection
throughout eternity.
It is possible to make the Emmaus story dramatic
– as witness Caravaggio’s painting in the London National Gallery
where the disciple’s arm, flung wide at the moment of discovery
that this is indeed Jesus breaking the bread, emerges 3D-like
from the canvas. Drama there had been the previous day, with
the first performance of Bach’s Easter Oratorio, but
Bach and his librettist opted for a quieter, more reflective
style in BWV6, well captured by all concerned here.
The text of BWV68 also opens with words from the
Gospel for the day, on St John’s favourite theme of love: “God
so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten Son.” Between
these words and the sting in the tail in the closing Chorale,
that all who fail to believe are condemned, the Cantata again
provides a set of meditations on and expansions of that opening.
Once again, all concerned here rise to the occasion. Barbara
Schlick really excels in the best-known aria, Mein gläubiges
Herze, splendidly accompanied by Coin on the violoncello
piccolo (tr.14).
The recording throughout comes close to matching
the excellence of the performances. You may wish to turn the
volume up a notch to compensate for the relatively backward
placing of the soloists. Barbara Schlick suffers most from this,
but it isn’t a serious problem. The booklet, a straight reprint
of the original, is helpful and informative; the English translation
is idiomatic. My only complaint is that the font employed is
very small, especially in the texts and translations; at this
small size (8 point or less) a sans-serif font would have been
more legible. The CD cover depicts Leipzig in 1750; the outer
cardboard sleeve displays an enigmatic fragment of van der Weyden’s
portrait of Duke Philippe of Burgundy.
This may not be the
most essential Bach recording, but otherwise I cannot recommend
it too strongly – and I repeat that there isn’t a single dud here
or elsewhere among Bach’s Cantatas. These performers made two
other Bach Cantata recordings for Astrée – may we now have reissues
of them, please?
Brian Wilson
Barbara Schlick
(soprano); Andreas Scholl (counter-tenor); Christoph Prégardien
(tenor); Gotthold Schwarz (bass) 
