Bach Cantatas, Vol. 1: City of London
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Music CD Cover
Performer: Dietrich HenschelComposer: Johann Sebastian Bach
Conductor: John Eliot Gardiner
Orchestra: English Baroque Soloists
Performer: Gillian Keith
Performer: Joanne Lunn
Performer: Paul Agnew
Edition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2005-05-10
Music Label: Soli Deo Gloria
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Aria. Ihr Menschen, r?hmet Gottes Liebe
- Recitativo. Gelobet sei der Herr Gott Israel
- Aria (Duetto). Gottes Wort, das tr?get nicht
- Recitativo. Des Weibes Samen kam
- Choral. Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren
- Coro. Chirst unser Herr zum Jordan kam
- Aria. Merkt und h?rt, ihr Menschenkinder
- Recitativo. Dies hat Gott klar
- Aria. Des Vaters Stimme lie? sich h?ren
- Recitativo. Als Jesus dort nach seinen Leiden
- Aria. Menschen, glaubt doch dieser Gnade
- Choral. Das Aug allein das Wasser sieht
- Part I. Coro. Freue dich, erl?ste Schar
- Part I. Recitativo. Wir haben Rast
- Part I. Aria. Gelobet sei Gott, gelobet sein Name
- Part I. Recitativo. Der Herold k?mmt und meldt den K?nig an
- Part I. Aria. Kommt, ihr angefochtnen S?nder
- Part I. Choral. Eine Stimme l??t sich h?ren
- Part II. Recitativo. So bist du denn, mein Heil, bedacht
- Part II. Aria. Ich will nun hassen
- Part II. Recitativo. Und obwohl sonst der Unbestand
- Part II. Aria. Eilt, ihr Stunden, kommt herbei
- Part II. Recitativo. Geduld, der angenehme Tag
- Part II. Coro. Freue dich, geheil'gte Schar
- Part I. Coro. Die Elenden sollen essen
- Part I. Recitativo. Was hilft des Purpurs Majest?t
- Part I. Aria. Mein Jesu soll mein Alles sein!
- Part I. Recitativo. Gott st?rzet und erh?het
- Part I. Aria. Ich nehme mein Leiden mit Freuden auf mich
- Part I. Recitativo. Indes schenkt Gott ein gut' Gewissen
- Part I. Choral. Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan
- Part II. Sinfonia
- Part II. Recitativo. Nur eines kr?nkt
- Part II. Aria. Jesus macht mich geistlich reich
- Part II. Recitativo. Wer nur in Jesu bleibt
- Part II. Aria. Mein Herze glaubt und liebt
- Part II. Recitativo. O Armut, der kein Reichtum gleicht!
- Part II. Choral. Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan
- Part I. Coro. Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot
- Part I. Recitativo. Der reiche Gott wirft seinen ?berfluss
- Part I. Aria. Seinem Sch?pfer noch auf Erden
- Part II. Aria. Wohlzutun und mitzuteilen vergesset nicht
- Part II. Aria. H?chster, was ich habe
- Part II. Recitativo. Wie soll ich dir, o Herr
- Part II. Choral. Selig sind, die aus Erbarmen
- Part I. Coro. O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort
- Part I. Recitativo. Kein Ungl?ck ist in aller Welt zu finden
- Part I. Aria. Ewigkeit, du machst mir bange
- Part I. Recitativo. Gesetzt, es dau'rte der Verdammten Qual
- Part I. Aria. Gott ist gerecht in seinen Werken
- Part I. Aria. O Mensch, errette deine Seele
- Part I. Choral. Solang ein Gott im Himmel lebt
- Part II. Aria. Wacht auf, wacht auf, verloren Schafe
- Part II. Recitativo. Verlass, o Mensch, die Wollust dieser Welt
- Part II. Aria (Duetto). O Menschenkind
- Part II. Choral. O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort
Free Music Notes for Bach Cantatas, Vol. 1: City of London
Free Music Review: BACH AND HELL FIRE
Hit: 5 Stars
This 2-disc set is numbered 1 in Gardiner's great `pilgrimage' through the entire collection of Bach's surviving cantatas, but put not your trust in numbers where this series is concerned. The performances were recorded on the liturgical dates for which they were composed throughout the calendar year 2000, and the Feast of St John the Baptist and the first Sunday after Trinity fall just after midsummer. This issue has some claim to primacy from the sheer amount of music that it contains - several of the cantatas here are exceptionally long, and each disc contains an hour and a quarter of music.
I found the same things to admire here as I have found in all my growing collection of the pilgrimage issues. The style is impeccable, the execution by everyone concerned is exemplary, and the recorded sound is faithful, clear and proportionate. More important still, what shines out like a ray from heaven is the sheer love of this great music shared by the director and all his colleagues. Gardiner himself must have set out on such a daunting project as an expert on the cantatas, but we know from what the other performers tell us elsewhere that they were largely learning them as they went along. Their sheer musical talent and professionalism ensures quality, but there is a freshness also about these accounts that comes from a sense of new revelation. I never sense any fatigue despite the exhausting travelling that it all involved, to say nothing of the limited time for learning these often demanding scores and then rehearsal. They felt it a privilege, and they share the privilege with the rest of us.
As always, Gardiner gives us his own thoughtful and illuminating commentary. I found this chapter even more interesting than usual, because the texts presented to Bach for the first Sunday after Trinity major on the theme of eternal damnation. Cantata 20 has not gone far before we hear `the pain of eternity has no end: it pursues without cease its game of torment...there is no redemption from agony' and similar intimidations are continued with growing fanaticism as the text progresses. In his notes Gardiner seems almost to suggest that one number in particular represents Bach's attempt to reassure us that it's not as bad as all that really. I have to take respectful issue with Gardiner. In the first place I don't think that Bach queried or watered down the Lutheran faith in any way; and secondly I rather suspect that Gardiner's deep fascination with the music leads him to find more elements of representation in the music than Bach put there. In one of these cantatas, for example, Gardiner detects the waters of the Jordan flowing, and I really think this is just an enthusiast's fancy. Bach will now and then use the music to represent pictorial aspects of the text, like the storm rising and abating on the Sea of Galilee in another issue, but that is not his normal style.
It seems to me that an infinite river of pure `absolute' music flows through Bach, a gift of the Holy Spirit perfected with an unholy amount of hard work. The cantatas are in general as absolute in that sense as his Art of Fugue is, and the vocal parts are integrated into the instrumentally-based patterns that were Bach's mode of expression. I don't sense that from choice Bach wrote music that responds directly to its text in the way Handel did. Music creates its own expression and its own moods, it is a universe in its own right and it will serve the greater glory of God without going beyond its own natural idiom. Obviously there are limits to this, and Bach would not write music in a sorrowful tone to a joyful text, but for the most part he recognises only the solution that is best musically.
Cantata 20 confronts the composer with the issue of hell fire and eternal undiminished torment, and the music is unquestionably agitated and suggestive of fear, as well it might be. Bach has not elected to be above that sort of thing, although modern enlightened Anglicanism is, and although the tone is far from Bach's usual atmosphere of serene trust in God I have to think that he takes the sentiments at their face value. This is nowhere near my own favourite Bach cantata, and the reason for that is partly that I am repelled by the texts but much more because such settings are not the natural voice of Bach. I have no idea whether there is a Creator of the cosmos, but I am absolutely sure that if there is He has not been communicating to us via scriptures prophets or pastors. The Christianity that underlay Bach's divine purpose seems to me a wholly human construct, and the mediaeval sadism of these texts was as much the outcome of its time as well-meaning modern Anglicanism is. If on this earth we are making any contact with something outside above and beyond, it seems to me that we are doing that through the medium of music above all, and here is the purest of such channels.
If you are trying to trace the composer's development or the progressive artistic enrichment of the performers, the hardest way to do this would be from the numbering-sequence of either the cantatas or the recordings. Neither bears any perceptible relation to chronology. However this issue is #1 for some reason that I cannot fathom. I have collected 10 or a dozen of the issues to date, and if I were ordered to rank them it might as well be #1 so far as quality goes, as might most of the others.
Bach Cantatas, Vol. 1: City of London Poster
This is the first of many volumes recording a Pilgrimage made in 2000, when John Eliot Gardiner, his remarkable instrumentalists and chorus and a team of outstanding soloists performed each Bach Cantata on the feast day for which it was originally composed. Each box will contain 2 CDs, copious notes, and full texts and translations. The fact of the Pilgrimage aside, these performances are simply stunning. Gardiner treats each cantata like a little drama, and his players and singers make certain to dramatize the music and text vividly. When, in Cantata No. 20, the tenor sings of "flames that burn forever," for example, the wildly difficult coloratura and accompanying strings slash with heat. Elsewhere, the listener will bask in Cantata 30's oddly rhythmic alto solo with flute and muted violins. The chorus is excellent throughout, but they dazzle in the 8-minute opening to Cantata 7. The soloists are well-known Bach singers, lieder singers, and performers from the world of opera. Bass Dietrich Henschel and tenor Paul Agnew are, perhaps, the finest of the five, and they have the most to do as well. This is a glorious set of six cantatas, a splendid 2.5 hours of great music-making. --Robert LevineClassical Music CDs
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