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.

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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

Sir John Eliot Gardiner's personal curation of Easter Choral music inspired by his family's annual Easter Play at his home in Springhead, Dorset. A companion to the Monteverdi Choir's 1998 recording Once as I remember, which told the story of the Springhead Christmas Play. Structured around a series of tableaux, narrating through a combination of the different Gospel accounts, it is a dramatic retelling of the Resurrection story, employing disparate musical styles and frequent shifts of focus and perspective, all held together by the creative vision of a Dorset mother and her son. He writes: "This personal selection of music for Easter from the 11th to the 20th centuries tells the story of the Resurrection and Christ's appearances to his disciples. It is based on my experience of compiling and directing the music for a mimed Easter play, performed in village churches in Dorset every year between 1963 and 1984, the brainchild of my mother, Marabel Gardiner, to whose memory this recording is dedicated."

Some hallmark performances in this array of Trinity cantatas

As ever, John Eliot Gardiner’s magnificent Bach Cantatas series eschews the big-boned, monumental approach to this composer of yesteryear. Here, in a really tremendous volume, is spiritual reflection paced to the fast-moving ebb and flow of life today. As such, it always feels relevant and vital. And much of that stems from the fact that Gardiner’s players and singers sound so utterly involved through every bar. Even if it doesn’t approach the polish of some versions, and one or two of the singers are not quite of the vocal quality of rivals, still they perform as if in response to some higher call. Among conductors, of course, few rank higher than Gardiner. And, as ever, the tempi and textures are warm and above all channel a sense of the humane. Woven into the whole are countless magical virtuoso moments – these may be great shared experiences, but the space for individual expression constantly keeps it personal. When the big collective moments do arrive, as at the end of Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, they do so with great force. And, as the marvellous Monteverdi Choir beseech Jesus for mercy, for the strength to resist temptation, there is no question as to the cumulative power of these readings.

-- Gramophone [5/2008]

This indispensable series goes from strength to strength.

This is the release in the series for which I’ve been waiting most keenly. That’s because it includes a concert which I was lucky enough to attend. In July 2000, as part of the Cheltenham Music Festival, Sir John led his pilgrims into the magnificent medieval surroundings of Tewkesbury Abbey for a late Sunday afternoon concert. I was among the capacity audience, accompanied by two Bach-loving friends, both of whom have since died. I’m sure they would have shared my pleasure at reliving the event through the medium of CD. I had completely forgotten that the previous evening Gardiner and the Pilgrims had been at London’s Royal Albert Hall when they’d performed two of these cantatas as part of a Henry Wood Promenade Concert. Sir John comments how pleased they all were to get back to the more intimate feel of a Pilgrimage concert.

Proceedings at Tewkesbury began with BWV 24. The cantata opens with the words “Ein ungefärbt Gemüte von deutscher Treu und Güte macht uns vor Gott und Menschen schön.” (“An unstained mind of German truth and goodness makes us beloved of God and men.”) There’s a calm assurance and confidence about the music to which Bach sets this very Lutheran sentiment. The stately aria that results is sung with great poise by Nathalie Stutzmann. Later there’s a vigorous chorus, which is far from easy to pull off – and which gave even Gardiner’s forces a little trouble in rehearsal, we are told. In performance, however, it’s completely successful. The other especially persuasive feature of this cantata is the plangent tone that Paul Agnew brings to the tenor aria, ‘Treu und Wahrheit sei der Grund’. His approach is ideally suited to the music.

Alfred Dürr states that when Bach first performed BWV 24 in Leipzig he had, on the preceding three Sundays, given the Leipzig congregations much longer and more elaborate bi-partite cantatas, BWV 75, 76 and 21. In order to keep his offering for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity in similar scale he performed two cantatas that day, one either side of the sermon, and the second cantata was BWV 185. This is a much earlier piece but one that contains a good deal of admirable music. It opens with a lovely soprano/tenor duet and here we find the voices of Magdalena Kožená and Paul Agnew intertwining languorously. Miss Kožená’s tone is particularly melting. Added interest comes from Bach’s use of a clarion, which, as Gardiner puts it, we hear “hovering above the two amorous vocal lines.” Further into the cantata there’s another treat in the form of the alto aria ‘Sei bemüht in dieser Zeit’. It’s an enchanting aria and, as Gardiner says, Nathalie Stutzmann’s “sumptuous yet transparent contralto seemed just right for this aria, especially in the glowing afternoon light of Tewkesbury Abbey.” Later comes a bass aria but I’m afraid I don’t find Bach’s music all that appealing on this occasion, nor is the timbre of Nicholas Teste’s voice as ingratiating as I’d like.

The final Tewkesbury offering is BWV 177. This cantata is based on a hymn and Bach, setting five verses, eschews recitative. There’s a substantial and elaborate opening chorus in which the Monteverdi Choir excels. In the alto aria Nathalie Stutzmann once again produces beautifully communicative singing. Her aria is sparsely accompanied by continuo only. The soprano aria is a more elaborate affair with a very decorated vocal line. Magdalena Kožená gives it a fine, fluent reading. The remaining aria is for tenor and it’s mainly jaunty in tone. Agnew sings excellently. Of special note in this aria is the chattering double obbligato, provided by a violin and a bucolic, soft-grained bassoon.

The next stop on the journey was a city with very direct Bachian links. Mühlhausen was the city where Bach worked for just a year (1708-08) before moving on to Weimar, though he appears to have maintained cordial links with Mühlhausen after his departure.

Only two cantatas for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity have come down to us. This relative paucity gave Gardiner the chance to perform at Mühlhausen two highly appropriate cantatas, written for the city but for other occasions. BWV 71 was composed for the inauguration of the town council in February 1708. The splendour of this civic occasion prompted Bach to write for pretty extravagant forces. Four solo voices (SATB) are augmented by an optional ripieno choir (also SATB) and no less than four separate instrumental choirs are specified: three trumpets and drums; two recorders and cello; two oboes and bassoon; two violins, viola, and violone. However, Gardiner points out that the cantata has its weaknesses and he says that it is “somewhat disjointed and short-winded”, a verdict from which it is hard to dissent. However, he very rightly singles out for praise the penultimate movement, the chorus ‘Du wollest dem Feinde” The gentle, expressive music in this movement is a cut above the rest of the score. As Dürr comments, it’s “the most original and captivating movement in the whole cantata.” It’s splendidly done here.

Gardiner fields a strong team of soloists, who blend together most effectively in the third movement, a quartet. This concert introduces us to a soloist not previously encountered on the Pilgrimage, the South African tenor Kobie van Rensburg. His voice was completely new to me but he makes a most favourable impression with a strong, ringing tone and clear articulation and diction. This is heard to good advantage almost immediately in the aria ‘Ich bin nun achtzig Jahr’.

The next cantata, BWV 131 is a much stronger and more rounded composition. Perhaps it helps that Bach had a much more unified text to set in the shape of verses from Psalm 130. The opening chorus is quite superb. The keenly felt slow music with which it opens is most eloquently performed and no less impressive is the account of the lighter, more rapid music that follows. Gardiner dovetails the contrasting textures of solo quartet and main choir most effectively. The fugal chorus, ‘Ich harre des Herrn’, is marvellously balanced, both in musical and emotional terms. I enjoyed van Rensburg’s shaping of the long expressive lines in the following aria, ‘Meine Seele wartet auf den Herrn von einer’ and the impressive chorus with which the cantata ends is splendidly articulated by all concerned. This whole performance is a tremendous success.

Then we hear two later cantatas, specifically written for the Fifth Sunday, where the Gospel for the day tells the story of Peter fishing all night without success yet, letting out his net one more time at the command of Jesus, he then hauls in a munificent catch (Luke, chapter 5 vv1-11). First comes BWV 93. The libretto avoids a specific reference to the gospel story until the tenor recitative (movement V). The extended opening chorus incorporates important contributions from the quartet of soloists. Kobie van Rensburg again attracts favourable attention in his aria ‘Man halte nur ein wenig stille’ (‘Remain silent for a while’). This aria is well described by Gardiner as an “elegant passepied” and I appreciate the touch of steel at the heart of van Rensburg’s plangent voice. Later, he has an important recitative and it’s good to find that he can bring a sense of drama and some effective word painting to a passage such as this. I also liked very much the alert, bright singing of Joanne Lunn in her aria ‘Ich will auf den Herren schaun’, where the oboe obbligato is an equal source of delight.

Finally comes BWV 88. This opens with a pretty unusual bass aria. At the start the libretto refers to God sending fishermen (“Behold, I will send out many fishermen, says the Lord”) and Bach responds with a wonderfully easeful, lilting barcarolle in 6/8 time. The grateful, elevated vocal line is meat and drink to Peter Harvey, who delivers it quite beautifully. Abruptly the mood changes (“And thereafter I will send out many hunters”), the pace quickens appreciably and Bach deploys, in Gardiner’s words, “a rampaging pair of high horns” in the orchestra. Harvey is impressive throughout.

There’s another chance to enjoy van Rensburg’s singing in this cantata. He makes a very good job of the aria ‘Nein, Gott ist allezeit geflissen’ (No, God is always eager that we be on the right path’) Later Joanne Lunn and William Towers blend most effectively in their duet. Gardiner tells us that the audience for this concert was “attentive and rapturous even by the standards of this pilgrimage” and no wonder, for on the evidence of these recordings the good people of Mühlhausen were treated to a splendid and most stimulating concert.

Yet again the standard of performance in these recordings is extremely high and the music is wonderful. Bach’s stream of invention and inspiration is a never-ending source of wonder. I’m also filled with renewed admiration for Sir John, who seems to have an inexhaustible capacity to say something fresh about this marvellous music each time he picks up either his pen to write the notes or his baton to direct the performances. This indispensable series goes from strength to strength.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

I'd aim to convert music-loving friends who resist Bach cantatas with the latest volume in the Bach Pilgrimage. Anyone who fails to succumb to the thrilling celestial melee in No 19 is a lost cause.

-- Richard Wigmore, Gramophone [12/2006]

It’s a measure of the importance of Whitsun in the Lutheran calendar that, like Christmas and Easter, the feast was celebrated over three days. This latest release in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage series consists of two concerts given on consecutive days in the same venue, Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, in Suffolk details. This noble church, much lauded by Simon Jenkins in his book, England’s Thousand Best Churches, is one of the so-called Wool Churches and is mainly late-Perpendicular in style.

Readers who have been following the reviews of this series to date will know that one of its many notable features is the booklet notes. These are taken from a journal that Sir John Eliot Gardiner compiled during the Pilgrimage. It seems to me that his notes for this present volume are the finest to date. He writes with particular eloquence about the feast of Pentecost and Bach’s music for the festival and he’s particularly adept on this occasion at pointing out resonances between the theology of the feast, Bach’s music and the venue for the concerts.

The first concert – and CD – consisted of cantatas for Whit Sunday itself. Proceedings get off to a joyous start with the exuberant, trumpet-led chorus that opens BWV 172. The rhythms bounce infectiously and the trumpets ring out festively. The first aria in this cantata is one of Bach’s puissant bass and trumpet arias, ‘Heiligste Dreieinigkeit’. This is authoritatively dispatched by the German-born Greek bass, Panajotis Iconomou, a singer that I can’t recall hearing before, though he was a finalist in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2001. After this Bach provides respite and refreshment in the form of the easeful tenor aria, ‘O Seelenparadies’ This suits the light, heady voice of Christoph Genz admirably. I also relished the sensuous performance of the duet for soprano and alto, ‘Komm, lass mich nicht länger warten.’ The cantata ends with two choral movements. First comes a chorale, which is enriched by a countermelody for the orchestral violins. Then we are treated to a most welcome reprise of the opening chorus, which rounds off a very fine cantata in a splendid performance.

Next we hear the first of Bach’s cantatas entitled Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 59. The origins of this piece, which dates from 1723 or 1724, are a little uncertain and Gardiner’s note is good on this point. I enjoyed the duet for soprano and bass with which it opens. The two trumpet parts that accompany the singers are surprisingly – and very effectively – restrained in tone. It’s somewhat unusual to find a chorale as the third movement. The bass aria that follows is a fine creation. It’s a lovely, lyrical inspiration in which a graceful vocal line is complemented by an equally suave violin obbligato. I admired the velvety tone that Panajotis Iconomou deploys here. The cantata lacks a closing chorale and it seems to me that Eliot Gardiner’s solution is a sensible one. He repeats the chorale that we heard earlier, but the choir now sings a different verse of the same hymn.

Bach revisited the text of Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten again in 1725. He re-worked some of the music from BWV 59 in this new cantata, BWV 74, and, apart from the opening movement, he set a different text. The opening movement of BWV 59 is transformed here into a four-part chorus. The music for BWV 59’s above-mentioned bass aria, ‘Die Welt mit allen Königreichen’, is now assigned to a soprano with an oboe da caccia obbligato. This re-worked aria, ‘Komm, komm, mein Herze steht dir offen’, is quite delightful and I share John Eliot Gardiner’s preference for this version of the music. The partnership of soprano and oboe da caccia has been encountered before, in BWV 1 (Volume 21), and I find it highly effective. Lisa Larsson is the accomplished soprano on this occasion. The dazzling tenor aria, ‘Kommt, eilet, stimmet Sait und Lieder’ is a real tour de force. Christoph Genz delivers this virtuoso piece superbly. As we shall see later, the mixture of lightness and steel in his voice is absolutely right for such music. The cantata also contains a hugely demanding aria for the alto soloist, ‘Nichts kann mich erretten’, which is distinguished in particular by the leaps that the singer is required to make from one extreme of his register to the other. It’s a dramatic piece and Derek Lee Ragin gives a graphic account of it. However, the timbre of his voice may not be to all tastes and I must admit a preference for Robin Blaze’s performance in Gardiner’s earlier account of this cantata, to which I shall come in a moment.

Finally we are given the superb cantata, O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe, BWV 34. This begins with one of the most exciting choruses in all Bach. This large- scale, celebratory piece is adorned with silvery trumpets and makes a most splendid impression here. The music is like the rushing of the Pentecostal wind itself and it’s hard to imagine it done with greater fervour than in this exuberant performance. The Monteverdi Choir surpass themselves with singing that is light and effervescent yet which has the requisite weight too. It’s tremendously disciplined yet it still sounds spontaneous. I can see that some eyebrows might be raised at the strong accents in the central section of the chorus but I love it. Gardiner says of this chorus: "In performance it generates colossal energy and elation" and that’s certainly the case here.

In the tenor aria that follows Christoph Genz’s singing reminded me of the splendid and sensitive work he did as the Evangelist in the performances of Christmas Oratorio with which the Pilgrimage began in December 1999. This is followed by the heavenly aria ‘Wohl euch, ihr auserwählten Seelen’. From his comments in the notes it’s clear that Nathalie Stutzmann’s performance made a deep impression on Sir John and I’m not surprised. She gives a serene account of the aria, which I find even more satisfying than Bernarda Fink’s fine performance in the earlier DG recording (see below.) The end of the cantata contains a stroke of genius, with the choir bursting in abruptly at the end of the bass recitativo. This is the prelude to "a typhoon of an orchestral finale" as Gardiner describes it, where choir and orchestra combine to bring what must have been a memorable concert to a jubilant end.

Collectors should note that Gardiner has recorded these four Whit Sunday cantatas, BWV 34, 59, 74 and 172 before. They were issued by DG in 2000 as one of the series of discs issued at the time the Pilgrimage was in progress (DG 463 584-2). The disc is still available, I believe, but it contains different performances, recorded under studio conditions in April 1999 and all the soloists on the DG disc are different, with the exception of Christoph Genz. This earlier disc is by no means eclipsed by the newcomer. However, the SDG accounts seem to me to have that indefinable ‘edge’, which perhaps stems from the fact that they are live performances. I’ve highlighted above a couple of points where I have a preference for the newcomer. What clinches it for me, however, is the opening chorus of BWV 172. Here the new version has more life and buoyancy. The tempo is fractionally faster and the rhythms seem that tiny bit more urgently sprung. Though the 1999 performance is excellent its successor is even more joyous: it’s a real winner.

The next day three more cantatas were given, all for Whit Monday. Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut, BWV 173 was a re-working of a 1717 cantata written while Bach was in Cöthen, to celebrate the birthday of Prince Leopold, his employer. In its adapted, liturgical format, as BWV 173, the cantata may well have been heard first in Leipzig in 1723 but Eliot Gardiner’s performance is of a further re-working of the score that Bach undertook in 1728. Christoph Genz’s combination of lightness of voice and steely ring, already noted in BWV 74, is again a source of pleasure in the gigue-like aria, ‘Ein geheiligtes Gemüte.’ The busy alto aria, ‘Gott will, o ihr Menschenkinder’ is not, perhaps, one of Bach’s most memorable inspirations. However, the following duet for soprano and bass is a delight. It’s something of a technical tour de force, as Bach moves through a succession of scoring, metres and keys. It’s very well done here.

Also hat Gott die Welt geliebet, BWV 68 is a work that, as Eliot Gardiner comments, "almost seems as if [it] were composed back-to-front" since it begins with what he terms a "lyrical and wistful" chorale and concludes with a much more dramatic chorus of the type that one might expect to find at the start of a cantata. However, as so often, Bach’s musical inspiration fits the text perfectly and the gentle, lilting rhythm of the opening movement serves to emphasise quiet joy that God sent his son to redeem the world. In this splendid performance both the singers and the instrumentalists are alive to every nuance of rhythm and dynamics. Both the second and fourth movements of the cantata were adapted by Bach from his ‘Hunt’ Cantata, BWV 208. The first of these movements is the celebrated soprano aria, ‘Mein gläubiges Herze’. Soloist Lisa Larsson conveys appropriately breathless joy. However, the extremely fleet tempo chosen by Gardiner may disconcert some listeners. This performance is a very different conception from, say, those by Edith Mathis (for Karl Richter) or the incomparable Agnes Giebel (for Fritz Werner) and it’s noteworthy that both of those performances last for over four minutes whereas Gardiner whips through the piece in 2:55. Miss Larsson’s singing isn’t anything like as full-toned as the other two ladies I’ve mentioned and, in fairness, I don’t think the tempo gives her the chance to be. The player of the obbligato violincello piccolo also sounds somewhat pressed. The other movement taken from the ‘Hunt’ Cantata is the bass aria. Bach gives his singer an accompaniment of no less than three gambolling oboes and a bassoon and I find the effect irresistible. The strong and energetic closing chorus is an exciting affair with a cornetto and three sackbuts doubling the choral parts.

The final cantata in what is a slightly short programme is Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte, BWV 174. The opening sinfonia is a memorable expansion of the first movement of the third Brandenburg Concerto. The expansion is to the scoring: Bach adds highly important parts for pairs of horns and oboes to the original string band and, in Gardiner’s memorable phrase unleashes a "living bombardment of instrumental sounds." Even longer than the sinfonia is the alto aria from which the cantata takes its title. This is an outstanding aria and it’s sung radiantly and expressively by Nathalie Stutzmann. I had reservations about Gardiner’s pacing of ‘Mein gläubiges Herze’ but that’s not the case here. I feel he adopts an ideal tempo for this heavenly aria. It flows with a beautiful inevitability, with two intertwining oboes enhancing the vocal line. The concluding chorale uses the same music that Bach used for the final chorale of St. John Passion and it makes for a very satisfying conclusion to another fine disc.

As this series unfolds I have come to value increasingly the Sunday-by-Sunday presentation. Not only does this seem to me to afford the most logical way to order an intégrale of the cantatas, but also it allows one to appreciate the way in which Bach responded in different ways at different stages in his career to the same liturgical and scriptural themes. That, in itself, I am finding to be an enriching experience.

The Pilgrim’s sojourn in Long Melford was another highly successful artistic enterprise. This pair of discs has given me enormous pleasure. The very high standards of performance, presentation and recorded sound that were set in earlier releases has been maintained and I strongly recommend this latest addition to what is fast becoming a very important and distinguished cycle of the cantatas.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International