INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW

SDG131: Bach Cantatas Vol. 23 (19 Jul 2007)

The latest volume in this wonderful series brings three cantatas for the first Sunday after Easter, one that was composed for Easter Tuesday, and three written for the second Sunday after Easter. By this stage of the Pilgrimage in 2000, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque soloists had reached the Bachs' church at Arnstadt, traditional home territory of that extraordinary family, before moving on a few days later to the Basilica of St Willibrord at Echternach for the second of this pair of concerts. Both venues witnessed the same small miracle that so many churches on the pilgrims' route before and after also experienced: performances of a spirit and accomplishment that would have seemed impossible for lesser mortals, faced with the need to move from place to place, and doubtless with the occasional unforeseeable problem that had to be overcome - not least, surely, the inevitable changes in personnel in the course of the Pilgrimage, quite apart from the need to adjust to the acoustics of each new venue. Commitment and enthusiasm are evident at every stage, with Sir John as presiding genius.

At Arnstadt, the cantatas performed all turn on the need for faith, for trust in God's goodness. BWV150, probably Bach's first cantata, is followed by three works more firmly assignable to the first Sunday after Easter, the texts of which convey the doubts as well as the confidence of early Christians. This is exemplified in the magnificent Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ, where conventional word-painting gives way to the inspired climax of the aria with chorus, where Christ's repeated words 'Peace be unto you' calm the storm of the orchestral strings and allay the fears of His disciples.

The second (Echternach) disc contains works linked by the image of Christ the good shepherd. All three offer the familiar mixture of choruses, recitatives and arias, but in imaginative response to sometimes rather banal words Bach constantly manages to bring off master-touches. Nowhere is this more true than of BWV112, of 1731, where the five verses based on Psalm 23 are treated with the ripest generosity of response: a ringing chorale fantasy opens the work, followed by a pastoral aria for alto, then an amazing bass arioso conveying the terrors of the valley of the shadow of death, until the promise of Christ's rod and staff lightens the darkness. After a sprightly bourrée for tenor and soprano, a brief, calmly confident chorale brings the cantata to all too swift a conclusion.

Throughout, the performances are of the highest standard. Common to both programmes is the ever-reliable - and in solo after solo far more than that, despite some lack of resonance at the bottom of his range - Stephen Varcoe: magnificent in the solo cantata Der friede sei mit dir, and treasurable, too, in the aria from BWV42. The other three soloists on the second disc are members of the choir: fresh, expressive singing from Katharine Fuge and countertenor William Towers, and especially from tenor Norbert Meyn, a singer with real presence and lyric power. On the first CD the countertenor and tenor are the expert Bach singers Daniel Taylor and Charles Daniels, who are joined from the choir by soprano Gillian Keith, who in her aria in Nach dir, Herr shows herself fully equal to the challenge of the company she's keeping and the composer she serves.

As with earlier volumes in the Soli Deo Gloria series, the last words of admiration and gratitude must go to the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and their inspired director, John Eliot Gardiner.

Peter Branscombe