BIS - Suzuki Bach Cantatas series

Started in 1995 Suzuki's series with the Bach Collegium Japan is maintaining a remarkable consistency of sheer quality. These performances radiate freshness, and their vitality is matched by a wonderfully present recorded sound which, in the later volumes, with the addition of the surround effect of SACD, is very realistic indeed. It gives impression that one is in the auditorium where the performances are taking place.

With Carolyn Sampson and Yukari Nonoshita among others joining the soloists in recent volumes, the quality of the solo singing, and indeed the instrumental obbligati, seem unsurpassable.

Suzuki uses a higher pitch (A=465) with its brighter sound, and also favours female voices. The strings are clean yet have bloom, and there is no sense of inhibition.

"Although the excellence of rival surveys is not in doubt, this Japanese survey is the strongest and most consistent, and the BIS recordings are altogether exemplary" - Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music, 2008.