CD collectors who are
about to embark on adding a set of the
cantatas of J.S. Bach to their shelves
will soon need to hire their own desert
island on which to ponder the variables.
There is the John Eliot Gardiner ‘Cantata
Pilgrimage’, Helmut Rilling’s set on
Hanssler, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Ton
Koopman’s Amsterdam forces on Challenge
Classics, and then there’s the Masaaki
Suzuki recordings on BIS which seems
to have reviewers on a permanent hunt
for new superlatives. Sigiswald Kuijken
has already released Bach cantatas on
the Virgin and Harmonia Mundi labels,
and received much acclaim for his earlier
recordings of BWV 82, 49 and 58 on the
Accent label – one still very high up
on my desert island shortlist. Looking
at the lineup of soloists and players
in La petite bande, Kuijken has, in
the words of P.D.Q. Bach, ‘a different
bunch of friends now’, and it is intriguing
to hear some of the subtle differences
which have crept in over the years.
I do not have the resources
to do much in the way of comparisons
of the most recent Bach Cantata sets,
complete or currently in production.
Collectors will read the reviews, and
hopefully have the chance to sample
new releases for themselves before embarking
on the major investment of a new complete
set from any one conductor, or director.
Sigiswald Kuijken’s approach follows
the Joshua Rifkin theory of single voices
for the choral sections, so here is
at least one controversial dividing
line on which choices can be made. His
project is to record a 20 CD edition
of Bach cantatas, one for each Sunday
and high feast of the liturgical year
– not a complete set then, more a survey
which can if desired even serve a practical
purpose. The CD recordings are closely
connected to concert performances and
made as far as possible during the time
of year the cantatas were composed.
The CD booklets are filled with learned
and interesting detail about the cantatas
in general and each work specifically,
spending a great deal of time on the
texts chosen for each piece and Bach’s
treatment of them. I do have one small
moan here. While the presentation is
very nice and the texts printed in full,
the sections of text are not given their
CD track number, just their number within
that particular cantata. You have to
flip to the back of the gatefold CD
case to find the relevant access point,
and I found I became quite quickly irritated
by unnecessary back-and-forth wrestling
with pages and the clever flip-flop
box design.
Sigiswald Kuijken has
a deservedly high reputation for his
interpretations of this music, but while
his authentic performance credentials
are impeccable I’ve always enjoyed the
natural way in which he allows his singers
and players the full range of expression
in terms of vibrato – another issue
still being hotly debated in some quarters.
Accent’s recordings are equally clean
and beautifully balanced, with a gorgeous
sense of ambience. There was one moment
on this new recording where I did have
some small doubts. BWV 35 is admittedly
the equivalent of an organ concerto,
and the portativo has clearly been rolled
closer to the microphones in this work:
you can even hear the thud of the keys
being pressed in the runs during the
first aria, "Geist un Seele
wird verwirret" of BWV 35,
which is after all the ‘title track’
for this disc, but I do wonder if this
isn’t just a tad overgenerous.
The instrumental playing
is warm and affectionate throughout,
full and benevolent, while at the same
time giving the intimate feel of chamber
music. The soloists are strong as well,
without being overpowering. Baritone
Ewald Demeyere and tenor Jan Kobow have
clearly been well coached on projecting
the emotional weight of the texts, and
the latter does this very well in BWV
179. The same goes for alto Petra Noskaiová,
whose range is less at an advantage
within the texture of the ensemble,
but still has all of the range and clarity
for which you could wish. Beautifully
lyrical though she is, Gerlinde Sämann
has a lighter voice which many won’t
find a bad thing, but there were a few
moments where the boy soprano sound
of Harnoncourt’s earlier recordings
were called to my mind – it’s not a
weakness, just a slightly vulnerable
quality at the ends of some phrases
and in the lower register. She does
make a beautiful job of "Herr,
deine Güte reicht soweit"
in BWV 17 however – it’s one of those
voices which might not impress immediately,
but it certainly grew on me – singing
for the music’s sake, rather than for
the voice’s. The ‘choral’ sections where
the voices need to blend as much as
possible work very well indeed, and
even though the single voice to a part
principle is strictly maintained and
will contrast greatly with versions
which have full choral forces, I never
had the feeling of being short changed.
Taste and a personal
voyage of discovery will have to be
your guide when looking into preferences
between recordings of these works, but
I have to say I admire Kuijken’s approach
to the programming of the cantatas,
and, having heard this volume, would
say that these pure recordings and intimately
scaled performances will be hard ones
to beat. At least, I now have fairly
clear idea of what I shall be looking
for the next time someone buys me some
record tokens.
Dominy Clements
for details
Gerlinde Sämann (soprano)
ACCENT
ACC 25305 [73:55] 
