This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players. REVIEW:From within the midriff of the BIS cantata project,...

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

REVIEW:

From within the midriff of the BIS cantata project, Masaaki Suzuki presents the last of his recordings of Bach’s four extant large-scale choral masterpieces. This is, as you would expect, a B minor performance of extraordinary devotional weight, as its resonant surround sound irradiates the score in a patiently constructed explication.

[The] Gloria fairly crackles and Suzuki’s careful voicing between singers and instrumentalists generates extraordinary revelations (such as the consoling beauty of the “Qui tollis” and, later, a remarkable reading of the Sanctus). The choral movements are admirably unhurried but purposeful, the light and lithe sopranos glowing like Jupiter on a clear night...“Et in unum Dominum” (with the admirable Carolyn Sampson and Robin Blaze) reveals its expectant delights, as does Blaze’s heart-stopping Agnus Dei.

[A] rounded and impressive reading whose “Dona nobis pacem” encapsulates the best of Suzuki: committed, life-affirming and generous.

-- Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Gramophone [2/2008]