On ClassicsToday: Swiss Bach Cantata Cycle Continues to Delight (Bach-Stiftung)

Volume 26: St. Gallen’s Bach Cantata Cycle Marches On

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

Step by lively step, the St. Gallen Bach Foundation’s cantata series moves ahead with its sneakily magnificent releases. One of the latest efforts, Volume 26, features the usual qualities: Unspectacular, buoyant, deeply felt readings with fine singers with clear, natural voices.

BWV 25 opens the proceedings with its sighing, teeth-gnashing stepped introduction in the violins—in a tangy minor mode that belies the E major on the written page. The tug and pull leads to a constant repetition of “There is naught of soundness about my body before thy dire anger, nor any rest in my bones in light of my sins” in the chorus—operating in free counterpoint to the double fugue to the chorale in the brass with three trombones and a horn. [continue reading]

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