Bach, J S: Cantata BWV170 'Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust'

John Eliot Gardiner, The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists continue on their Bach pilgrimage and head to Ansbach to perform at the prestigious Ansbach Bach Festival. The programme opens with BWV 9 Es ist das Heil uns kommen her. This is then followed by the well known chamber cantata BWV 170 Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, expertly sung by internationally renowned counter-tenor, Michael Chance. A highlight is the first alto aria - an aria of pure enchantment, which tells, through rich and passionate music, that “pleasant rest” can be attained only though union with heaven. The programme ends with the very moving funeral motet Der Gerechte kommt um, attributed to Bach, an incredibly beautiful five-voiced Latin motet composed by Johann Kuhnau. The magnificence of this motet made this very popular with both the choir and orchestra thereby resulting in it being used as a regular encore on the Bach Cantata pilgrimage.

Thirty miles east from the hustle and bustle of a busy Edinburgh hosting its world famous festival, we join John Eliot and the Monteverdi forces in the collegiate church of St. Mary’s situated in the modest, tranquil market town of Haddington, Scotland. BWV 186 Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, comprises eleven movements and is structured in two parts. A movement that stands out is the glorious duet for soprano and alto (No.10), in which the crucial injunction ‘Sei, seele, getreu!’ (‘O soul, be true!’) is reserved until the last two bars. We then hear BWV 107 Was willst du dich betrüben, a chorale cantata set per omnes versus, that is, with all the verses of a hymn set unaltered. Bach here cleverly overcomes the limitations of being confined to a rigidly structured hymn without monotony or repetitiveness through the usual devices of changing the voice type in the arias, the key and the metre. The final chorale, BWV 187 Es wartet alles auf dich is again structured in two parts and comprises of music that is both gentle and seductively beautiful. Bach clearly supports this belief by parodying the music of this cantata a decade later in his G minor Missa (BWV 235).

In 1726 Bach entered a new period of creative innovation in Leipzig: renouncing the chorus, he built up a constant dialogue between solo arias and finely sculpted instrumental parts.The three cantatas presented here represent the culmination of this development, and have established their place as a peak of the recorded repertoire.

"If the public only knew it, singers of classical music can be diamonds every bit as rough as their rock counterparts. But the mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink is a notable exception: graceful, poised and intelligent, she is every inch the lady, and it's no surprise to learn that she's wife to the Austrian ambassador to Slovenia, the country of her ancestors.This personal elegance colours her approach to performance. She doesn't deliver Bartoli-style show-stopping exhibitionism (she raises her eyebrows slightly when I mention the name), because she is a musician of an older and more dignified school, valuing refinement, subtlety and sensibility over fireworks, and she never sings louder than lovely. Yet there's nothing genteel or pallid about her golden-toned voice.The emotions she evokes in baroque music and Mozart, as well as the more romantic terrain of lieder, Berlioz and Mahler, are marvellously vivid. In the 1980s she moved to Europe, but nothing much happened until she met the conductor René Jacobs, a counter-tenor of note "who understood the way my voice worked" and led her towards the baroque repertory where she has happily dwelt ever since. Bach is her desert island composer, she says, with Monteverdi second. She has sung with Jacobs for almost 20 years, but is equally sought after by great names such as John Eliot Gardiner and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, alternating concerts with lieder recitals, the latter often with the English pianist Roger Vignoles. Opera plays a diminishing part in her schedule.As an ambassador's wife and mother to two, she dislikes being away for long periods and limits herself to "perhaps one set of performances a year": in 2008, it will be Idomeneo, in Barcelona." [with René Jacobs, recorded for harmonia mundi, June release 2009] The Daily Telegraph

A new 2-CD compilation from Dame Janet Baker's many Decca and Philips recordings, released to mark her 75th birthday on 21 August 2008.

This generously-filled 150-minute programme ranges from arie antiche and baroque arias through to one of Benjamin Britten's last works, the cantata Phaedra, written specially for Janet Baker.

Recordings included in this programme were made between 1961 and 1977 and showcase the many and varied vocal talents of this much-loved, and justifiably internationally-lauded artist.