This stunning new live recording of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (Matthauspassion BWV 244) was recorded in Pisa Cathedral during the Anima Mundi Festival as part of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra’s 2016 tour. Conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the brilliant cast includes James Gilchrist as the Evangelist and Stephan Loges as Jesus. The Trinity Boys Choir adds an exciting color to this recording as well. The Monteverdi Choir was founded by Sir John Eliot Gardner in 1964. The ensemble’s first performance was the Monteverdi Vespers in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. The group has become known worldwide for their stylistic conviction and their ability to perform an extensive repertoire, from Renaissance motets to Classical music of the Twentieth Century.

-----

REVIEW:

Musically this is a very fine performance. The choir are excellent, of course, with a solid but clear and intimate sound even in the larger choruses, no end of expressive means in the chorales, and a thrilling quickness in the crowd choruses. Gardiner asks for a lot of quiet singing from them and they execute it with a superbly controlled beauty.

The orchestra is as skilled and musical as you like in their obbligatos, and exquisitely responsive in Gardiner's subtle shapings.

The experienced Evangelist of James Gilchrist and Christus of Stephan Loges are not to be faulted, and none of the nine young aria soloists is a weak link; each one lives up to their moment in the drama.

All of these things you will find in many other Matthews, but you will rarely find the same careful relishing of the German text. What really makes this one special, however, is its emotional integrity, coming not from affected theatricality but from a pervading sense of profound sadness. This recording is one of Gardiner's finest achievements.

– Gramophone

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists celebrate Christmas with a mixed programme of J.S. Bach’s sacred choral works. As we approach the 500th Anniversary of the Lutheran Church, these works transport listeners to 18th-century Leipzig for a traditional Christmas celebration. The programme moves from the intimacy of “Süßer Trost” to the vast celebration of joy that is Bach's Magnificat. The Bach at Christmas project is dedicated to the memory of philanthropist and patron of the Monteverdi choir, Sir Ralph Kohn. The concerts from which these recordings were taken took place at the Alte Oper, Frankfurt, in December of 2016.

If Bach had written only the Mass in B minor, he would be considered the leading composer of sacred music in the Baroque period. Composed between 1733 and 1749, on the eve of his death, this Great Mass is a musical testament for posterity: the most accomplished synthesis of the aesthetics that Bach mastered to perfection, but also an anthology of his sacred work, with it's perfectly mastered architecture. John Eliot Gardiner delivers a sensitive reading of this pinnacle of Western music, which he has frequented for half a century, with irresistible energy and compelling beauty. The Monteverdi Choir, undoubtedly the best choir in the world, delivers an extraordinary musical performance. This exceptional moment, filmed in the Chapelle Royale at the Château de Versailles, sumptuously captures the majesty of this masterpiece of sacred art.

Volume 10 of the Cantata Pilgrimage series features the programs given in Potsdam and Wittenberg on the 29th and 31st of October, respectively. The first disc is devoted to three cantatas for the 19th Sunday after Trinity with BWV 90 (for Trinity 25) tossed in for good measure, while the second appropriately contains Bach’s two great Reformation Day cantatas (Nos. 79 and 80), separated by the brief, lively, and possibly incomplete No. 192. The three Trinity 19 cantatas are altogether more solemn, or at least begin that way. Coming a third of the year after the last major festival, these cantatas are concerned more with reassurance than exultation, and each concludes with a positive affirmation, and in the case of BWV 5, a triumphant one. Best known of the three, by far, is Cantata 56, for bass. Here divorced from its customarily joined-at-the-hip partner, BWV 82, it confirms its status as one of the elite cantatas. The inclusion of No. 92 is a happy solution to a number of dilemmas. The year of the Pilgrimage did not have enough Sundays after Trinity to accommodate it; it fills out what might otherwise have been a short program, and it is a vigorous and effective foil for its more introspective discmates.

Again, the performances are superb. Personnel for the two concerts are consistent, apart from the addition of flutes, horns, timpani, and a bass sackbut for the second evening. The choir is made up of seven (count them) sopranos, one female and three male altos, four tenors, and three basses, without detectable loss of responsiveness and flexibility, and the solo quartet acquits itself admirably. Harvey’s BWV 56 is outstanding. Lunn and Towers, incidentally, pull double duty, singing in the choir as well as offering their solos.

As expected, Gardiner uses the original scoring––without Wilhelm Friedemann’s high trumpets––in Ein feste Burg (Cantata 80). Obviously it’s an (perhaps the) appropriate choice, but it set me to wondering about what seems to be an obsession among the period-practice set with composers’ first thoughts––their need to find the earliest version of any score, as if the original inspiration is automatically diminished by any subsequent modifications. We know that Bach’s music was nearly always created under the most intense pressure, and that he was constantly tinkering with it, usually out of necessity, but, who knows, perhaps out of conviction. I know that I, operating at a much lower level of inspiration, am continually tweaking whatever I happen to be working on. Recording artists, especially in the classical field, if they are successful enough, revisit music that they have already committed to disc. First thoughts are not invariably best. That’s why there are erasers on pencils and an Undo button on the Word toolbar. We’ll never know, of course, but isn’t it possible that Bach might have mentioned casually to his son that he wished he’d put some trumpets in that music he wrote for Reformation Sunday? Well, no matter. In fact, Gardiner does have a sonic surprise for us in Cantata 80, an unexpectedly prominent bass sackbut. And why not? The production is, as anticipated, exemplary. Most enthusiastically recommended.

FANFARE: George Chien

Another splendid disc in this important series.

This disc contains the very final concert, the fifty-ninth, of Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Cantata Pilgrimage. This was the last of three concerts given in New York to conclude the Pilgrimage. We’ve already had one disc devoted to Christmas cantatas, performed on Christmas Day itself (see review), and its companion, recorded at a concert given just two days later (see review). Now here’s the final Christmas instalment.

It must have been quite an emotional occasion for the Pilgrims, knowing that this was the end of their journey – a journey of discovery and celebration. Gardiner makes that clear in his notes, but even if he had not done so anyone who has followed the series to date would have guessed as much from the comments that various performers have made in their own recollections, printed in earlier booklets.

The concert begins not with a cantata but with a motet, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225.This was a most intelligent piece of programming since the concert was to close with the cantata that bears the same title. The motet begins with infectious joyfulness – Sir John refers to the “joyous, spirited singing” – but the Monteverdi Choir is no less alive to more reflective moments in Bach’s piece. This means that the central section is marvellously poised. In the outer stretches of the work, however, they provide singing of superb clarity, full tone and rhythmic vivaciousness.

BWV 152 contrasts very strongly with the motet. This is a work from Bach’s Weimar period and it is scored for very modest forces indeed. A solo soprano and a bass are accompanied by just six instrumentalists – recorder, oboe, viola d’amore, viola da gamba and a continuo, comprising cello and organ. Alfred Dürr suggests, in his definitive study of the cantatas, that perhaps, after the other musical demands made on the Weimar musicians during the Christmas period, Bach had very limited forces available to him and made a virtue of necessity in his scoring. The result is a wonderfully intimate creation, which is sung delightfully by Gillian Keith and Peter Harvey.

Harvey, one of the rocks of this whole series, is in fine voice. Gillian Keith also excels, especially in the sublime aria, ‘Stein der über alle Schätze’. Here the recorder and viola d’amore intertwine sinuously in support of her touching singing. This is a wonderfully delicate movement and the fragility of the music contrasts pointedly with the much more emphatic bass recitatives that are placed on either side of it. There’s no concluding chorale. Instead the cantata ends with a dialogue between the Soul (soprano) and Jesus (bass), which is very well done here. This wasn’t a cantata with which I was very familiar so I’m particularly delighted to find it in such an excellent performance.

Next we hear BWV 122, a Leipzig piece. This is based on an old hymn, dating from 1597, which would have been familiar to the Leipzig congregations. Peter Harvey has a challenging aria, which, predictably, he puts across very well. I like Katharine Fuge’s lovely, pure tone in the following recitative and then she and James Gilchrist combine most effectively in a terzetto, in which they’re joined by the altos of the choir, who sing the chorale melody beneath the soloists’ florid lines.

The first two cantatas have been predominantly reflective in tone. Now, however, the decks are cleared for some serious rejoicing, beginning with BWV 28. Against a sprightly accompaniment Joanne Lunn opens the proceedings with what Dürr calls a “joyful, dance-like song of thanksgiving.” This is an engaging, smiling piece of singing; not only is Miss Lunn characterful but she’s also technically assured. There follows a magnificent chorus, which finds the Monteverdi Choir on stunning, incisive form. Gilchrist is at his most expressive in the recitative ‘Gott ist ein Quell’ and then he and Daniel Taylor are terrific in the sprightly duet ‘Gott hat uns im heurigen Jahre gesegnet.’

But you sense that the whole concert has been building up to the performance of BWV 190. This cantata has come down to us with only a fragmentary orchestral score and Gardiner and his colleagues engaged in some well-informed reconstruction. For example, timpani and a trio of trumpets have been added to the opening chorus, to thrilling effect and, as we shall see, there’s an even more inspired piece of re-scoring later on.

The piece opens with a chorus that is nothing less than an outbreak of unbridled rejoicing. On this occasion the music is invested with the sort of vital, virtuoso singing and playing for which Gardiner has become renowned. He and his performers convey a life-enhancing optimism. One senses that everyone was on their toes to provide the Big Finish to the Pilgrimage. The cantus firmus interjections from Luther’s German Te Deum are especially fervent but then so is the whole of this chorus; it’s a really spine tingling performance.

Later comes a duet for tenor and bass soloists, ‘Jesus soll mein alles sein.’ In an inspired piece of scoring, Gardiner allots the obbligato to the viola d’amore. The obbligato part consists largely of “chains of wistful, gestural arabesques bouncing off a silent main beat” (Gardiner). The effect is quite ravishing. One might have feared that the delicate, husky sound of the viola d’amore would be swamped by the singers. However, without holding back, Gilchrist and Harvey sing with such exemplary control and taste that everything fits together beautifully. Gardiner chose to repeat this movement as the second and final encore at the end of the concert and it’s a nice thought that this was the last music to be heard during the Pilgrimage. The thought is all the more poignant since the violist, Katherine McGillvray, died last year aged just thirty-six; the CD is dedicated to her memory.

After this luminous duet comes a tenor recitative. It was the final solo of the concert and, therefore, of the Pilgrimage and it’s fitting that this should have been entrusted to James Gilchrist, since he’s been another mainstay of the whole enterprise. He produces a marvellously weighted, nuanced piece of singing, which typifies the skill and perception of so many of his contributions to the Pilgrimage.

All that remains is the final, affirmative chorale, which, as performed here, seems to be a summation and a salute to the genius of Bach. This performance anticipated by a few hours the New Year for which the cantata was written. As such, it looked back on a year of homage to Bach and celebration of his music in the 250th anniversary year of his death. But the performance also seems to look forward with confidence, perhaps because Gardiner and his team felt inspired and refreshed by their shared and individual experiences during the course of the Pilgrimage. For the Pilgrims this marked journey’s end. For those of us who are reliving their journey through the medium of CD we have many more volumes in prospect. The next instalment is keenly awaited but for now this splendid disc will sustain us.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

These days we have to be reminded that Easter, not Christmas, is the primary festival of the church year. (In Bach’s Leipzig, of course, Good Friday was the most important day of the musical year.) Nevertheless, Christmas was a major celebration at that time and place, with services on Christmas and the next two days, followed by observances on New Year’s day, the first Sunday of the New Year, and Epiphany. Consequently, Bach created considerable music for the season. The present disc, Volume 14 in the series, features two Christmas cantatas, BWV 91 (1724) and 110 (1725), and two cantatas for the day after Christmas, BWV 40 (1723) and 121 (1724).

Cantata 91, from the year of chorale cantatas, imbues Luther’s Christmas hymn, Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, with a feeling of anticipation and exhilaration unusual even for Bach. Budding excitement in the opening chorus finally erupts in striking syncopations. The final chorale is enhanced by fanfare-like expressions from the brass. Another chorale cantata is BWV 121, based on Christum wir sollen loben schon. It begins with a more subdued choral movement, but a joyful air is introduced by the subsequent tenor aria and reinforced by a jaunty aria for bass. Cantata 40 does not belong to the chorale-cantata cycle, but three of the seven movements after the opening chorale fantasia are straightforward chorale settings. Most resplendent of these four cantatas is No. 110, which opens with a choral re-make of the third movement of the Fourth Orchestral Suite.

Gardiner’s preface again reminds us that the Cantata Pilgrimage was not undertaken as a recording project; the recordings are fortuitous by-products of the Pilgrimage. The concert captured on this disc, which took place in New York City on Christmas Day, 2000, was the third-to-last in the whole enterprise. One might reasonably have excused any evidence of fatigue at that point, but there is none in evidence; rather, the energy generated by the performances is quite extraordinary. For listeners who wish to sample the series before committing themselves to it, this single disc may provide an auspicious starting point. Most enthusiastically recommended.

Incidentally, in reviewing earlier releases from the Pilgrimage, I noted the sterling attendance record of violist Colin Kitching. A letter from Clifford Bartlett of Early Music Review noted that Kitching is the Monteverdi Choir’s librarian. But, alas! He didn’t make it to the Big Apple, so Sir John will be the only person to have participated in every one of the Pilgrimage recordings.

FANFARE: George Chien

John Eliot Gardiner's fresh take on Brahms' Symphony No. 2 is only partially about performing forces. The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique's period-based proportions yield impressive ensemble clarity along with bracing instrumental timbres, most notably in the strings, which play sans vibrato. This has a curious effect in Brahms--compared to the accustomed buttery warmth produced by the Vienna Philharmonic or the Chicago Symphony, Gardiner's spare-sounding string band lends a certain curtness to the musical expression, especially so at the start of the slow movement, which here sounds more baroque than romantic. But this quality fits Gardiner's interpretation, with its moderately quick tempos and crisp phrasing. The orchestra's lively playing, most notably the woodwinds, makes Brahms' harmonies sing quite beautifully and makes you listen to the music with fresh ears. Only the finale breaks the spell--Gardiner's rather deliberate coda keeps the grand conclusion firmly on the ground.

The coupled Schubert choral works, of interest primarily to choral music aficionados, really don't add much to the program, although they do set the stage for Brahms' Alto Rhapsody, the opening of which interestingly has stylistic similarities to the Schubert pieces. Nathalie Stutzmann's dark, true-alto voice rings powerfully in the Rhapsody, while the Monteverdi Choir gives compelling performances throughout. Completing the package is recorded sound that's clear and detailed (with a slight emphasis on the high frequencies), fully complementing Gardiner's interpretive approach (especially that decidedly different Brahms Second!). A most welcome release.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

SDG is delighted to release Volume 12 - Cantatas for the twenty-second and twenty-third Sundays after trinity.

John Eliot Gardiner, The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists performed both of these programmes in England: at All Saints church in Tooting and at Winchester Cathedral, in November 2000.

The soloists include James Gilchrist, Peter Harvey and Joanne Lunn.

The highlight of this album is Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (“Sleepers, wake”) - one of Bach’s best known cantatas, and one that has long been part of the Monteverdi Choir’s repertoire. It is described as “a cantata without weaknesses, without a dull bar, technically, emotionally and spiritually of the highest order”.

Ich armer Mensch, ich Sündenknecht (“I, wretched man, I slave to sin”) is Bach’s only cantata for solo tenor still in existence. It is sung movingly by James Gilchrist.

Of three cantatas on the parable of the unjust steward (BWV 55, 89, 115), Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit (“Prepare yourself, my soul”) is considered to stand out for its subtle instrumental writing and spellbinding arias, which evoke the yearning of the soul for divine mercy.

The recording in Tooting (CD1) is the only one in the whole series that wasn’t recorded live: the original concert took place in Eton chapel, right under the Heathrow airport flight path, so we had to try and recreate the same conditions in a quieter place.

This album is packaged with a separate index sheet of the Cantata series.

BACH Cantatas: No. 4; 1,3,4,5 No. 31; 1,4,5 No. 66; 3,4,5 No. 6; 2,3,4,5 No. 134; 3,4 No. 145 2,4,5 • John Eliot Gardiner, cond; Gillian Keith (sop); 1 Angharad Gruffydd Jones (sop); 2 Daniel Taylor (ct); 3 James Gilchrist (ten); 4 Stephen Varcoe (bs); 5 Monteverdi Ch; English Baroque Soloists (period instruments) • SOLI DEO GLORIA 128 (2 CDs: 120:39 Text and Translation)


This new installment, Volume 22, from Gardiner’s Bach Cantata Pilgrimage is devoted to the music of Easter Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Only two cantatas (plus the Easter Oratorio ) for each of these important festivals are extant. Surprisingly, only one of these six cantatas (No. 6) was conceived and composed in Leipzig. Three (Nos. 66, 134, and 145) were derived from secular cantatas written in Cöthen. No. 31 was brought to Leipzig from Weimar, and No. 4 from Mühlhausen.


From the first, Cantata No. 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden , effectively a set of chorale variations on Luther’s hymn, has been considered a special work, and, truth to tell, it is, if not my absolute favorite among the cantatas, certainly one of my top handful. Apparently it has a similar hold on Gardiner, who reckons that over his career he has performed it more often than any of the other cantatas. Gardiner assigns all of the vocal parts to the chorus, common practice a generation (or so) ago, but contrary to the current understanding that at least the duets and arias (verses 2, 3, 5, and 6) were intended for soloists. LPs by Shaw (RCA) and Prohaska (Bach Guild) were recorded without soloists, as was Gardiner’s first recording of this cantata (for Erato), now 25 years old. Richter (Archiv) modified that pattern by having Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sing the bass aria. Chorus and soloists are combined in the integral sets by Harnoncourt, Rilling, Koopman, and Suzuki. One-to-a-part advocates Parrott (EMI) and the Purcell Quartet (Chandos) do away with the chorus altogether. Less controversially, Gardiner eschews the brass quartet that Bach added for the Leipzig revival of Christ lag. His highly charged performance is marked by extreme contrasts, both in tempos and in dynamics. Listeners accustomed to Apollonian restraint in this music may regard Gardiner’s dramatic interpretation as something approaching irrational exuberance. A measure of that enthusiasm is carried into Cantata 31, and the conductor’s characteristic energy, somewhat tempered, informs the balance of the program. Singers and players are, as we have come to expect, excellent.


Overall, the current offering is a worthy continuation of Gardiner’s project, but if Cantata No. 4 is your principal concern, I find either Suzuki or Koopman from their respective series more to my liking. (Incidentally, the Easter cantatas were recorded in St. George’s Church in Eisenach, where Bach was baptized.)


FANFARE: George Chien

Listeners whose knowledge of German, like mine, encompasses the titles of Wagner’s operas but little more are prone to identify Bach’s cantatas by their BWV designations (as above), even though the numbers are essentially meaningless––remnants of a time when musicology was a hobby, not a discipline. One can only hope that Gardiner (and Koopman and Suzuki as well) will provide an index upon completion of the cycle. Gardiner organized his Cantata Pilgrimage by function, not by number, and the recorded edition is supposed to suit. But the random order of its first three releases suggests that you may have to acquire the complete set in order to achieve the intended sequence.

Volume 24 (following Volumes 1 and 8) is devoted to cantatas for the third Sunday after Easter––BWV 12 (composed in Weimar, 1714), BWV 103 (1725), and BWV 146 (1726 or 1728) and the fourth Sunday after Easter––BWV 116 (1724) and BWV 108 (1725). The original purpose of Cantata 117, composed between 1728 and 1731, is not known. Undoubtedly the best known of the six cantatas is No. 12, owing to its exquisite opening sinfonia for oboe and strings and the extraordinary following chorus––later adapted transformed into the Crucifixus of the B-Minor Mass––that has few rivals in all of music. Cantata 146 features another adaptation, this time in reverse; its opening sinfonia and first chorus are taken from the first two movements of the D-Minor Harpsichord Concerto (itself derived from a lost violin concerto), with the solo part, undoubtedly played by Bach himself, assigned to the organ. The transcription of the first movement is straightforward enough, but the integration of the chorus into the second movement is yet another example of Bach’s remarkable ingenuity. Cantata 103 was composed during Bach’s second annual cycle at Leipzig, but it came after he had abandoned the chorale cantata format. Like BWV 12 and 146, it traces a progression from grief to triumph. The duality is expressed in the opening chorus: sorrowful melismas sung against the joyful figurations of a solo violin and soprano recorder lead to an exultant conclusion.

The cantatas for Easter, composed for the first two Leipzig cycles, seem to be more modestly conceived. Both open with a bass solo rather than the expected choral fantasia, and in each the argument is carried by its arias. The choir’s soprano section makes an appearance in BWV 166, intoning a chorale; in BWV 108 a brief but energetic (and surprisingly complex) triple fugue lends emphasis to the day’s message. Both cantatas end with the usual four-part chorale. Cantata 117 is exceptional for two reasons. Individual programs for the Cantata Pilgrimage had to be adjusted when the catalog of extant cantatas contained either too many or too few cantatas, and to accommodate cantatas that have no known function. No. 117 is such a cantata and a masterpiece to boot. It is one the few cantatas in which the texts for all verses are taken directly from the original chorale. Each verse ends with the words “Gebt unserm Gott die Ehre!” (“Give honor to our God!”), but each instance is set to different music, except for the first and the last verses, which were unusually set to the same music. Gardiner’s notes mention some numerological speculation that has to be considered fantastic, whether it’s true or imagined. Read it and scratch your head.
With six discs down and 45 to go, only one musician, violist Colin Kitching, still has perfect attendance.
Performances, recording, and presentation are superb. It’s getting harder to choose just one cantata series. Get them all!

George Chien, FANFARE