At the moment, Pachelbel is represented in the catalogue by 'that' canon (of which I see, to my stupefaction, that there are now more than 50 recordings) and by organ music, with scarcely a hint of his vocal works, which in his lifetime were equally prized. Listening to this immensely engaging disc of ten of his motets for double choir from the last two decades of the seventeenth century (recorded for the first time) and a four-part Magnificat, one is grateful indeed that this superb vocal ensemble (with one voice to a part) has made the effort to redress the balance. Almost the first thing to strike one about these motets is their melodic charm: phrases are tossed back and forth antiphonally between the two choirs (the effect greatly enhanced here by widely separated stereo placing), but there is relatively little real polyphony except for an occasional fugato and the interweaving of chorales into the texture in Nun danket alle Gott and Gott ist unser Zuversicht (which incorporates "Ein' feste Burg").

The Johann Christoph introduced here with two five-part funeral motets and an eight-part piece is not, as might have been expected, Pachelbel's pupil, Johann Sebastian's eldest brother, but his uncle (there were, confusingly, no fewer than five Johann Christophs in the family). He too introduces chorales, though against a texture less melodically, more harmonically orientated. His younger brother Johann Michael's eight-part motets are simpler in structure, with less antiphonal treatment: Fürchtet euch nicht (a Christmas motet) includes a lengthy strophic treatment of "Jesu meine Freude".

The singing of the Cantus Cölln is a sheer pleasure to hear—full of vitality, with an ease in often ornate melismas and the purest of tuning and chording, well balanced, sensitively nuanced in dynamics, rhythmically flexible and with exemplary clarity of enunciation: their expressive shaping of words (the freshness of tone with which they invest words like "exultate" or "fröhlich Herz" truly lifts the heart) betokens keen intelligence in their approach and preparation. Enthusiastically recommended.

-- Gramophone [7/1994]