BBC Music Magazine

SDG150 - Bach Cantatas Vol 17 (27 Jan 2009)

***** [5 stars]

Although John Eliot Gardiner’s ‘Bach Pilgrimage’ – all 200 cantatas in a single year – had only just begun with the jubilant and taxing Christmas workload, his forces maintained more than enough energy and sensitivity in these, for New Year and the following Sunday. Gardiner’s heart-felt notes, edited from his journal, reveal his never-ending joy and wonder at the music unfolding before him week by week. They’re reflected in the performance: uplifting exuberance as each phrase in the opening of BWV 143 audibly expands; flexible vocal phrasing over taut, detached string chords in the first tenor aria; strings without a trace of vibrato announcing a chorale melody, as continuo and bassoon chase each other through the second tenor aria. Though possible spurious, this is too good to miss. At the other extreme is the opening chorale fantasia of BWV 41. Its trumpets, timpani, oboes, strings and chorus are amazingly lively and secure.

Soloists are superb throughout, Ruth Holton (soprano) specially striking for her transparent almost boy-like tone (BWV 58), and James Gilchrist (tenor) matching instrumental agility while a trio weaves heavenly counterpoint around him in BWV 171. Instrumentalists are no less polished – the plaintive oboe da caccia of BWV 16 is hauntingly lovely. The reverberant Gethsemanekirche in Berlin is admirable tamed in excellent recorded sound, albeit stereo rather than SACD. Altogether, Gardiner and his team at their very best.