Johann Sebastian Bach

“Another stunning Bach piano recording, every bit as exciting as Schepkin's debut outing with the Goldberg Variations.” American Record Guide

“Such is his grasp of Bach's architecture that the ornaments serve to enhance rather than detract from it, lending an almost improvisatory feel to these performances. But beware: this playing is not for the faint-hearted.” BBC Music Magazine

“The arrival of Sergey Schepkin on the recording scene...[has] raised the stakes for every player who essays Bach.So extraordinary are the achievements of this young man...that they set a new standard... We are, in other words, face-to-face with music history in the making.” Fanfare

“consistently outstanding performances, musical beyond belief, and worthy of any collection” (MusicWeb)

“This volume takes its name from Bach's second and least-established setting based on the great Advent hymn Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (No 62), composed in 1724 to inaugurate the new church year in Leipzig. If not quite boasting the magisterial imagery of his earlier effort from Weimar, the spirit of Luther's celebrated purloining of 'Veni redemptor gentium' lives on, especially in a brilliant opening concerto-style Vocal JS Bach 72 chorus whose unambiguous thematic character perfectly inhabits the hopes of the new season.
Masaaki Suzuki delivers a less visceral performance than some but derives a most effective contrast between the ecstatic fragrance of the first aria and the 'militant, tumultuous continuo theme of the second,' as Dürr puts it.
The latter, 'Streite, siege', is sung with considerable gusto by Peter Kooij but it is the contemplative elements to which Suzuki is most naturally drawn. The opening of Wohl dem, dersich auf seinen Gott (No 139) is a case in point, where the affectionate oboi d'amore provide a tender backdrop to a particularly reassuring treatment of Bach's most elegant of harmonic strategies. The return of Robin Blaze to the series brings a similarly involved and reflective musicianship to the anguished strains in 'Ach, unaussprechlich ist die Not' in No 116.
Elsewhere there is an urgent account of the graphic and succinct Ach wie flüchtig (No 26) in which Bach alights gleefully on the triviality and materialism of man's life; images of time and opportunity flash past us with striking immediacy here. This was a popular cantata in the preperiod era but few recordings maintain the focus of the conceit as effectively as Suzuki.
Less telling is the opening chorus of No 116 (Du Friedefürst) which, for all its tidy articulation and refined shaping, contains little of the rich repository of nuances, large and small, which Nikolaus Harnoncourt so effortlessly instills. For all the many beauties bestowed on us from Bach Collegium Japan over the past 27 volumes, that ageing series soberingly reminds us of a kind of musical assumption which oxygenated the best cantata performances then – qualities somehow less easily uncovered these days. The Super Audio option, used in the series for the first time, offers an even more luminous presenc” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The latest volume contains few disappointments. Tempos are well-judged, the 12-voice choir effective and the instrumental playing well nigh impeccable.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2005

“Pianists' paradise: highlights from an addictive, blissful annual festival.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2006