These recordings have been selected from the award-winning cycle of recordings of the complete cantatas of J. S. Bach by Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir. The featured soloists are sopranos Caroline Stam, Ruth Ziesak, and Sandrine Piau, altos Elisabeth von Magnus, Michael Chance, and Bogna Bartosz, tenors Paul Agnew and James Gilchrist, and bass Klauss Mertens.
Six of the works that Bach wrote for the annual church service celebrating the inauguration of the newly elected town council have survived: the Mühlhausen cantata “Gott ist mein König” BWV 71 of 1708 and several Leipzig cantatas: “Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn” BWV 119, “Ihr Tore zu Zion” BWV 193 (incomplete), “Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille” BWV 120, “Wir danken dir, Gott” BWV 29, and “Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele” BWV 69. The present album contains three representative town council election cantatas from Bach’s Leipzig years, BWVs 119,120, and 69, and includes the first and last works prepared for this occasion. The last town council election cantata performed by Bach in 1749 was actually a repeat performance of cantata BWV 29, an older work originating from 1731.
Christmas 2009
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“Koopman's Complete Bach Cantatas won a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2008. Now, freed from the constraints of chronological order, he's recycling the very best from the 14-year project, here three glorious celebratory works.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
