JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)

Cantatas Volume 3

 

Cantatas for the Fourth and Fifth Sundays after Trinity

Ein ungefärbt Gemüte BWV 24

Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe BWV 185

Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ BWV 177

Gott ist mein König BWV 71

 

Soloists: Magdalena Kozená, Nathalie Stutzmann, Paul Agnew, Nicolas Teste,

Joanne Lunn, William Towers, Kobie van Rensburg, Peter Harvey

Recorded: Tewkesbury Abbey (final cantata Blasiuskirche, Mühlhausen)

 

Cantata for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity

Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir BWV 131

Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten BWV 93

Siehe, ich will viel Fischer aussenden BWV 88

 

Soloists: Joanne Lunn, William Towers, Kobie van Rensburg, Peter Harvey

Recorded: Blasiuskirche, Mühlhausen

 

The Monteverdi Choir, The English Baroque Soloists / John Eliot Gardiner

 

SDG’s release of Bach Cantatas for the Forth and Fifth Sundays after Trinity opens with BWV 24 Ein ungefärbt Gemüte, recorded in Tewkesbury Abbey as part of The Cheltenham Festival. A far earlier piece follows, BWV 185 Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe was composed in Weimar in 1715 to a text by Salomo Franck and revived by Bach in Leipzig in 1723 and again in 1746/7. Strikingly different in mood is BWV 177 Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, composed in 1732, a chorale cantata based on Agricola’s hymn set unaltered and with no recitatives.

 

The second CD was recorded in Mühlhausen, where a twenty-two year old Bach took up his second professional post. It lasted for just one year, from June 1707 to 1708.  This programme includes BWV 71 Gott ist mein König.  There is nothing else quite like Gott ist mein König in Bach’s oeuvre. No other work of his is laid out on such a grand scale in terms of its deployment of four separate instrumental ‘choirs’, set against a vocal consort of four singers, an optional Capelle of ripienists and an organ.

 

“The singing and playing is exceptional.”

(Anna Picard, Independent on Sunday)

 

“John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Cantata Pilgrimage series just gets better. These pieces show Bach at his most exuberant, as though he’s laughing with unbridled joy at the secrets of the universe, and Gardiner’s team responds with thrilling playing and singing.”

(Warwick Thompson, Metro)

 

Monteverdi Productions 2cds SDG141