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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Bach Cantatas Volume 12Cantatas for the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity & Cantatas for the Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity
Recording locations: Tooting/ Winchester, November 2000. SDG is delighted to release Volume 12 - Cantatas for the twenty-second and twenty-third Sundays after trinity. John Eliot Gardiner, The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists performed both of these programmes in England: at All Saints church in Tooting and at Winchester Cathedral, in November 2000. The soloists include James Gilchrist, Peter Harvey and Joanne Lunn. The highlight of this album is Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (“Sleepers, wake”) – one of Bach’s best known cantatas, and one that has long been part of the Monteverdi Choir’s repertoire. It is described as “a cantata without weaknesses, without a dull bar, technically, emotionally and spiritually of the highest order”. Ich armer Mensch, ich Sündenknecht (“I, wretched man, I slave to sin”) is Bach’s only cantata for solo tenor still in existence. It is sung movingly by James Gilchrist. Of three cantatas on the parable of the unjust steward (BWV 55, 89, 115), Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit (“Prepare yourself, my soul”) is considered to stand out for its subtle instrumental writing and spellbinding arias, which evoke the yearning of the soul for divine mercy. The recording in Tooting (CD1) is the only one in the whole series that wasn’t recorded live: the original concert took place in Eton chapel, right under the Heathrow airport flight path, so we had to try and recreate the same conditions in a quieter place. This album is packaged with a separate index sheet of the Cantata series. “This ongoing recording project ranks as one of the musical events of the decade.” The Observer “One of the most ambitious musical projects of all time” Gramophone “Gardiner with his characteristic sense of theatre imbues [the opening of BWV140] with urgency and anticipation. BWV 115 is masterly throughout.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2010 ***** “There are countless highlights in the final two volumes...Gillian Keith is gloriously assuaging in "Ich halte er mit dem lieben Gott" from BWV52.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2010 | | | (also available to download from $21.00) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Bach - Cantatas Volume 14
“Masaaki Suzuki's considered approach to this oeuvre is what marks him out as a distinctive voice in current Bach performance. This volume reveals much of the best in the series so far: consistently good singing, a sustained familiarity with the music (not always to be taken for granted in the studio) beyond mere pristine executancy, and Suzuki's guiding hand which is especially attentive to the textual motivation in Bach's music.
A broader approach seems to win the day for much in this disc, as can be admired in the defining logic of the fine opening fugal chorus of Bringet dem Herrn (No 148), whose resplendent contrapuntal bravura takes thrilling flight in the chapel's ringing acoustic. Here, and rather less so in the relatively unpolished Leusink reading, the paragraphs connect in a way which ensures an inexorable momentum and sustained uplift – which was rarely achieved in performances of this work from the early days of Bach cantata recordings. The instrumental and obbligato playing throughout is of a high order (if not perhaps boasting the depth of string quality of Koopman), doubtless inspired by the alto and tenor of Robin Blaze and Gerd Türk respectively – who are the main soloists in all four works. Both sing with delectation and authority.
In No 109 Suzuki eschews over-characterisation and instead accentuates the instrumental profile as the means of gathering the disparate melodic ideas. There are many other highlights here.
The plangent opening lament-chorus of No 48 is slower than Koopman's, but it's a remarkably controlled, even and luminous creation. If not always emotionally exhaustive, Bach Collegium Japan explore the naked emptiness in this work, leaving you feeling properly wrung out. A notable achievement.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Bach - Cantatas Vol. 28
Arleen Augér, Aldo Baldin, Verena Gohl, Julia Hamari, Walter Heldwein, Philippe Huttenlocher, Adalbert Kraus, Siegmund Nimsgern, Ingeborg Reichelt, Wolfgang Schöne, Helen Watts Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Figuralchor der Gedächtniskirche, Gächinger Kantorei, Helmuth Rilling | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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