Bach Cantatas Vol. 7

Description

SDG 124 | 2 CD (41 tracks)

For the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
BWV 25 / 78 / 17

For the Feast of St Michael and All Angels
BWV 50 / 130 / 19 / 149

Recorded in Ambronay / Bremen

Monteverdi Choir
English Baroque Soloists
John Eliot Gardiner

Soloists
Malin Hartelius
Robin Tyson
Richard Wyn Roberts
James Gilchrist
Peter Harvey

The three cantatas for the 14th Sunday after Trinity are all based on the Gospel reading of the day, the story of Jesus’ healing of ten lepers. Standing as prime examples of the humanism of Bach’s basic approach and the audacity of his musical response, they include BWV 78 Jesu, der du meine Seele, with its white-hot inspiration maintained throughout. It opens with an immense choral lament of a scale, intensity and expressive power that match the preludes of the two surviving Passions. The highlight of BWV 17 Wer Dank opfert, der preiset mich, following its exhilarating and florid opening choral fugue and susequent arias, is the extended final chorale, delicate and poignant. The Feast of St Michael and All Angels was marked by Bach by a profusion of dazzling movements, including the breathtaking BWV 50 Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft. In BWV 130 Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir God is praised for creating the guardian angels to protect the believer, and in BWV 19 Es erhub sich ein Streit Bach uses his brass instruments to represent the apocalyptic encounters in heaven between St Michael with all his angels on one side and the devil on the other.