Bach, J S: Cantata BWV202 'Weichet Nur, betrübte Schatten' (Wedding Cantata)

Karl Münchinger recorded all the major orchestral and choral pieces by Bach for Decca, and over a period of some 30 years (from the Mono to the Digital eras), five of the Cantatas. All boast remarkable soloists from their eras. Suzanne Danco sings the two solo cantatas, BWV 51 and 202, recorded in 1953 and released on CD for the first time. Elly Ameling and Helen Watts are soloists in the early cantata, BWV 10. And the digital recordings of Ein feste Burg and Wachet auf feature Julia Hamari and Tom Krause. The collection is rounded off with two of the most popular orchestral arrangements from the Bach cantata repertoire – Jesu, joy of man’s desiring and Sheep may safely graze.

Since her early success in Glyndebourne’s now famous production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Danielle de Niese has become most closely associated with the music of the Baroque. The New York Times commented: “A voice seductive enough to woo gods as well as mortals”.

With her third solo album, Danielle de Niese embodies the Beauty of the Baroque with an album of arias from the English, German, and Italian traditions, accompanied by the leading European Baroque orchestra, The English Concert, under Harry Bicket. Many popular arias feature, including Handel’s, ‘Ombra mai fu’, and highlights from JS Bach’s Cantatas are contrasted with much loved solo songs by Purcell and Dowland.

Decca’s star countertenor Andreas Scholl joins Danielle de Niese for duets including the ravishing duet “Pur ti miro” from Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea.

Barbara Hendricks' voice — particularly suited to Mozart, Debussy, Fauré, and the lighter roles of Puccini and Richard Strauss — has a warm, crystalline quality that has kept her in demand on stage and in recording studios. Her performances have embraced everything from contemporary music to popular standards, including songs of Duke Ellington and several world premieres. She has been careful with her choices of repertoire, avoiding roles that would overextend her essentially lyric instrument. Aside from music, she is deeply committed to humanitarian work, with a particular concern for refugees and those in war or poverty zones. She sang a concert in Sarajevo in 1993 while the city was being shelled, in which she had to wear a bulletproof vest and helmet.

Hendricks has appeared on nearly 80 recordings spread over a variety of major labels. Her first of many recordings for EMI was in the small part of the Celestial Voice in Don Carlo in 1978. For nearly twenty years her solo recordings have been made exclusively for EMI Classics.

Although two of the works on this disc were composed for weddings, they are completely different in character. Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten is a charming and gracious garland of recitatives and arias for soprano solo in which Spring, Flora, Apollo and Amor are all invoked in a blessing of the newly wedded couple and their union. The Quodlibet (Latin for ‘what pleases’) on the other hand, is an altogether unceremonious composition which was probably intended for a private function in Bach’s own circle or family. All we have is a fragment of the work – in Bach’s own hand – and the beginning and ending of the piece, including the title page, are missing. It is therefore not even certain that it is Bach’s own work, but may have been a collaboration between several of the wedding guests. Compositions of this kind belong to a tradition which combines quotations from songs, toasts, market traders’ calls, proverbs and puns, and were especially popular at weddings – where they frequently got out of hand! The third disc in Bach Collegium Japan’s series of secular cantatas also includes a birthday cantata composed in the honour of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, Bach’s employer during years 1717–23. Durchlauchtster Leopold (‘Most illustrious Leopold’) celebrates the ‘propitious day’ while extolling the ruler’s ‘excellent attributes’ and ‘princely renown’. Two duets in minuet form lend the work the character of a courtly serenade, which didn’t stop Bach from reusing it, with a new text, as a church cantata a few years later. The name of the recipient of Schwingt freudig euch empor, another congratulatory cantata, is no longer known, but the text tells us that he was a teacher of high standing and of an advanced age. Once again Bach, who must have been attached to the work, reused it as a church cantata, but also, with the new title Steigt freudig in die Luft, as a birthday tribute to Charlotte Friederike of Anhalt-Köthen, the wife of Prince Leopold.

The soprano Martina Janková, a Zurich Opera soloist since 1998, has been a frequent guest of the Salzburg Festival and worked with conductors of such renown as Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Fedoseyev, Herreweghe, Rattle, etc. She also participated in Gardiner’s acclaimed Bach Cantatas project.

On this recording, Janková returns to the Bach repertoire alongside the distinguished Czech Baroque ensemble Collegium 1704, conducted by Václav Luks. Their different purposes (the first being a wedding cantata, the other two sacred works) notwithstanding, the three cantatas featured on the album have something in common: each of them in a way treats one of the possible forms of joy. Bach’s musical world is close to Martina Janková’s sensibility and voice – both in virtuoso coloratura passages (Jauchzet Gott) and fine expressive nuances (Ich habe genug). The live recording further augments the immediate experience with encountering Bach’s beautiful and inimitable music.

Archipel is delighted to offer this recording of Bach’s major choral works performed by the winning partnership of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Nicolai Gedda and Herbert von Karajan.