Bach, J S: Cantata BWV65 'Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen'

Recording locations: Recorded live in Weimar/ Leipzig/ Hamburg, December 1999/ January 2000.

SDG174 is the much awaited last volume of the Bach Cantatas Pilgrimage, one of the most talked about musical events of the last decade.

This is an anthology of the Christmas period, combining cantatas for Christmas Day and the Epiphany.

It features ten acclaimed soloists, including Magdalena Kožená, Bernarda Fink, Michael Chance, James Gilchrist and Christopher Genz.

The album opens with Christen, ätzet diesen Tag (“Christians, engrave this Day”), which was performed on Christmas Day 1999 to launch the year-long pilgrimage. This is one of Bach’s best known cantatas. The accompagnato recit was sung by Bernarda Fink to great acclaim.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the song of the angels at the birth of baby Jesus, is best known as the Gloria in the B Minor Mass.

Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen (“All they from Sheba shall come”) describes the procession of the three magi. Bach conveys the majesty of the scene by using high horns, and the recorders and oboes da caccia create an Eastern-like atmosphere.

The cantatas on this album display a great variety of dramatic expression. Both Mein Liebster Jesus ist verloren (“My dearest Jesus is lost”) and Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (”Beloved Jesus, my Desire“) tell the same story, but in a different style, expressing different emotions.

This album was recorded at Weimar’s Herderkirche, Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche and Hamburg’s Hauptikirche St Jakobi.

SDG174 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

Founded by Masaaki Suzuki in 1990, the Bach Collegium Japan began its landmark series of Bach's cantatas in 1995. In order to celebrate the ensemble's 20th anniversary – and indeed the 15th anniversary of the start of the cantata cycle – Suzuki has now devised a compilation of some of his personal favourites among the choral movements from the cantatas. The programme of the disc follows the Lutheran liturgical calendar, beginning with Advent and ending with the Feast of the Reformation, a feast which commemorates the day (31st October 1517) on which Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses, the spark that would set off the Reformation in Germany. This disc thus traverses the full range of events and emotions that constitute the church year, from the joyous expectancy of Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, by way of the Passion of Christ, to Bach's elaboration on Martin Luther's own hymn Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. In his own comments to the ample selection, Masaaki Suzuki gives his reasons for choosing these particular movements, and also offers two further favourites 'beyond the church year'. These are both pieces which in different ways transcend the boundaries of calendars, churches, religions and even nations: Bach's universally loved setting of Jesus bleibet meine Freude, and Dona Nobis Pacem, the heartfelt prayer for peace for the world from the B minor Mass.

The liturgical year with Johann Sebastian Bach: in celebration of the 800th anniversary of Thomanerchor Leipzig (St Thomas’s Boys Choir), Rondeau Production is publishing a ten-part CD series which presents a selection of cantatas for the liturgical year. In Leipzig, music for the liturgical year has an especially well kept tradition: up to the present day Thomanerchor Leipzig (St Thomas’s Boys Choir) and the Gewandhausorchester (Gewandhaus Orchestra) join forces each week in the performance of one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantatas at the church of St Thomas.

Like the recently released CD containing cantatas for Advent, the disc for the feast of Epiphany presents works for the beginning of the liturgical year: the Epiphany is the first ecclesiastic feast day of the new calendar year. Celebrated on 6 January, it follows on seamlessly from the Christmas celebrations and those for the turn of the year. Translated from Greek, epiphany originally means ‘appearance of the Lord.’ The recorded cantatas “Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen” (BWV 65), “Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid” (BWV 3), and “Alles nur nach Gottes Willen” (BWV 72) emphatically relate the biblical message to the reality of mankind in the present. This makes Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantatas, first and foremost, musical sermons. The cantatas were written for the feast day of Epiphany itself, and for the following Sundays.

The current cantor at St Thomas, Georg Christoph Biller, is fortunate to have boys from the choir’s own ranks performing the soprano and alto solos; a hallmark of the new recording’s unique level of artistry.

Christmas in Leipzig was always a busy time for Johann Sebastian Bach. Each year between December 25 and January 6, a period of just 13 days, no less than six cantatas were required, as well as other concerted music. Bach's first Christmas in Leipzig as the kantor of the Thomaskirche, 1723-24, was preceded by an extraordinary period of creativity. At this time he composed or revised for the 13-day period from Christmas Day to Epiphany the first version of the Magnificat (BWV 243a) and six cantatas.