Bach, J S: Cantata BWV131 'Aus der Tiefe rufe ich, Herr, zu dir'

The musicians of Il Gardellino are all leading specialists in historical performance practice and are internationally acclaimed performers of baroque music.

The 50 members of Arcis-Vocalisten München are all professionally trained and the choir is complemented by students from the Academy of Theatre and Music in Munich. Here they bring their experience to two early cantatas by Bach.

After last month’s beautifully repackaged start to their 30th anniversary, Ricercar now take great pleasure in presenting a compilation that includes two magnificent cantatas by J.S. Bach in a slipcased package that also includes the complete Ricercar catalogue.

These performances by the Ricercar Consort and its legendary quartet of soloists, from the series Deutsche Barock Kantaten, were created at a time when historical performance practice was new and sprang from original research into the performance practice. This style of music-making is now completely integrated into contemporary musical life thanks partly to these Baroque pioneers.

The Ricercar Consort have already been awarded a Radio 3 disc of the Week and a Gramophone Editor's Choice for their Bach recordings for Mirare. Here they present three sacred cantatas, among the earliest written by the young Johann Sebastian in his first posts as Kapellmeister in Mühlausen and Weimar, for Easter. They display the heritage and influence of the old master Buxtehude, but also the force, the modernity, and the genius of the future Kantor.

Selected from the award-winning cycle of recordings of the complete cantatas of J. S. Bach by Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam baroque Orchestra and Choir, the two “Funeral” pieces included in this album represent works from very different periods in Bach’s creative life. The cantata “Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir” BWV 131 originates from Mühlhausen and was written in 1707 or 1708 for an unknown occasion, most likely a penitential service perhaps related to the big fire that had devastated large sections of the town of Mühlhausen shortly before Bach’s arrival there in 1707. The Funeral Ode “Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahl” BWV 198 on the other hand is a large-scale, two-part cantata composed twenty years later in Leipzig in commemoration of the death of the Electress of Saxony and Queen of Poland. It is based on a morning poem in strophic ode format by Johann Christoph Gottsched, at the time Leipzig’s most celebrated literary figure. The artful poem was commissioned by an aristocratic student, Hans Carl von Kirchbach, in the name of the “German Society” at the University and for the academic act of mourning for the death of the Electress of Saxony and Queen of Poland, Christiane Eberhardine, wife of Augustus the Strong. Kirchbach commissioned the music for the event from another Leipzig celebrity, Johann Sebastian Bach, and not from the music director of the University, Johann Gottlieb Görner. The latter complained, but accepted the fact that this was an unusually prominent occasion. The work of 1727 could not be performed again in this form because the text makes concrete references to the queen. However, in 1731 the composer reused major parts of the Funeral Ode for his St. Mark Passion, now lost.