BBC Music Magazine

SDG137 Bach Cantatas Vol 16 (31 Jan 2008)

The programme on this CD concluded John Eliot Gardiner's Bach Cantata Pilgrimage. Recorded in St Bartholomew's church, New York on 31 December 2000, it consists of three cantatas for the Sunday after Christmas, another for New Year's Day, and the 8-voice motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied. The earliest piece is Tritt auf die Traubens-bahn, BWV 152 , which Bach wrote in 1714. GArdiner captures its intimacy and tenderness, and is outstandingly well served by Gillian Keith in her aria with recorder, viola d'amore and continuo. This is pure magic to my ears and eclipses any rival version I can think of. Das neugebornen Kindelein, BWV122, is a strongly devotional piece. The chromaticism and stern declamatory contours of its bass aria seem to foreshadow Herr Sclendrian's second aria in the Coffee Cantata. This is a cantata which does not wear it heart on its sleeve yet GArdiner somehow manages to probe its subleties even more effectively that does Philippe Herreweghe. The centrepiec of Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende, BWV28, is the chorale motet that forms its second movement. The translucent textures of the Monteverdi Choir, which also enhance the motet (BWV225) enliven it with well-punctuated phrasing underpinned by a lightly-articulated continuo.

Bach surely was intent on making his mark with Singet dem Herrn ein neus Lied, BWV190. Strings, three trumpets, drums, three oboes, oboe d'amore and basso continuo play their part, though Bach's autograph score has not survived complete. The problems are far from insurmountable, though - witness those convincing reconstructions. The rest of Gardiner's Pilgrimage is ye to come out on CD; in the meantime it's splendid to have here its robust and colourful final performance.

-Nicholas Anderson