Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s cycle of Bach cantatas has been
issued progressively on CD over the last four or five years and
is due for completion, I believe, next year. All the recordings
were made during the epic Bach Cantata Pilgrimage of 2000 when
he, The Monteverdi Choir, The English Baroque Soloists and a
group of fine soloists travelled round Europe - and, at the very
end, to New York - to perform the cantatas on the relevant Sundays
of the year. Most of the concerts were given in churches, several
of which had direct associations with Bach himself. The series
to date has represented a very considerable achievement indeed
and the cycle, when completed, will be a major addition to the
Bach discography.
From several of these discs the Monteverdi Choir’s own
label, Soli Deo Gloria, has issued this most attractive collection
of choruses, which gives an excellent taster of the project as
a whole. All but one of the discs have been reviewed already
on MusicWeb International - a review of Volume 4 (SDG 156) is
in the course of preparation - and I’ve included links
to the detailed reviews in the header to this review.
One benefit of selecting these choruses from a cycle of the cantatas,
albeit one that is not yet quite complete, is that the listener
will find some less familiar choruses alongside some of the well
known choruses - this isn’t just a “Bach’s
Greatest Choruses” collection. Indeed, the choruses have
been shrewdly chosen and make a satisfying, contrasting programme
in their own right.
So, as well as some familiar choruses we hear the dynamic, driving
opening chorus from
BWV 176, a fine cantata for Trinity
Sunday, and the exciting chorus that opens
BWV 19, a magnificent
cantata for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. This describes
warfare in heaven between Satan and the angelic armies, led by
St Michael. Gardiner and his forces give an exhilarating account
of this chorus, which will surely whet appetites for the complete
cantata. Just as splendid, though not as graphically militant,
is the chorus from
BWV 20. This majestic utterance finds
Bach at his most affirmative, proud and confident in his Lutheran
faith.
That’s quite a well-known chorus. So is the thrilling chorus
from
BWV 34, which opens the disc. For this Whit Sunday
cantata Bach is in understandably festive mood and trumpets and
drums are added to the orchestra to impart a suitably celebratory
tone to the proceedings. Trumpets and drums were added to the
scoring of the Reformation Day cantata,
BWV 80, after
Bach’s death by his son, Wilhelm Friedemann, but the additions
are inauthentic and, rightly, Gardiner eschews them. Their absence
doesn’t detract from the splendour of this chorus as performed
here, however. Incidentally, trumpets and drums may be absent
but Gardiner boosts the bass line of the orchestra by adding
a bass sackbut and the booming sound of this instrument is thrilling.
At the other end of the spectrum of religious sentiment from
BWV 34 or BWV 80 is the cantata for the Third Sunday after Easter,
BWV
12. This chorus - and the cantata which it prefaces - is
quite familiar, not least because Bach later reworked the music
of the chorus into the ‘Crucifixus’ section of the
Mass in B minor. The text is penitential and the music for the
chorus is slow, chromatic and intense. This is the sort of music
that Gardiner and his choir do very well and this present performance
is as fine as one would expect. The gentle chorus from
BWV
8, luminously accompanied, makes a lovely conclusion to the
collection.
Three of the choruses include contributions by soloists, all
of which are excellent. Mark Padmore is particularly impressive
in
BWV 95. Mention of the soloists reminds one that, of
course, the choruses in these cantatas are only part of the story.
The solo arias are of crucial importance in the cantatas and
I hope SDG may consider issuing a similar selection of arias.
That said, this highly enjoyable disc is as good a way as any
of gaining an initial experience of the riches that are contained
within Bach’s cantatas. It also gives a very fair indication
of the consistent excellence of Gardiner’s performances
throughout the cycle.
Documentation is up to SDG’s usual high standards. On this
occasion the notes are not by Sir John. Instead Jonathan Freeman-Attwood
contributes a very useful and readable essay.
John Quinn
Bach
Cantata Pilgrimage review page
Katharine Fuge, Brigitte Geller
(sopranos); William Towers, Robin Tyson (altos); Mark Padmore (tenor); Julian
Clarkson (bass); The Monteverdi Choir; The English
Baroque Soloists/Sir John Eliot Gardiner 
