Critic’s Notebook: Heavenly Secular Cantatas from the Vienna Academy Orchestra, Martin Haselböck, and The Supremes

Also published in Die Presse: Musikverein: So himmlisch tönen weltliche Kantaten

Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata BWV 214 "Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten!" et al Sampson, Danz, Padmore, Kooy P.Herreweghe / Collegium Vocale Gent (Harmonia Mundi, 2005) US | UK | DE

Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata BWV 134a "Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht" et al Danz, Ullmann H.Rilling, Gächinger Kantorei, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart (Hänssler Classic, 2000) US | UK | DE

Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata BWV 206 "Schleicht, Spielende Wellen, Und Murmelt Gelinde" et al Larsson, von Magnus, Prégardien, Mertens T.Koopman / Amsterdam BO&C (Erato/Challenge, 1997, 2004) US | UK | DE

Celebratory Bach to Die For

A slice of Bach-heaven on earth, courtesy of the Orchester Wiener Akademie and their soul-stirred singers.

The Orchester Wiener Akademie is a bit like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes you bite into a bit of a turd. But on Sunday morning in the Musikverein, the hand that reached in pulled out a truffle of the highest order – everything that makes the OWA glorious when it’s in top form. It began with the program. The sounds that filled the Golden Hall were, at first, familiar: the Christmas Oratorio. Fair enough for the first Sunday of Advent, especially in a world that can’t seem to tell Advent and Christmas apart anymore.

But – thankfully – it wasn’t the Oratorio. It was the secular cantata BWV 214, Tönet ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten! – the birthday serenade for Maria Josepha, whose best bits Bach later upcycled into his Christmas cycle. (“Upcycling” is exactly what we’d call that common Baroque practice today – all the more since Bach only ever parodied from worldly works upwards to sacred ones, never the other way round.) Alongside came Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre Macht, BWV 134a, and another grand secular cantata, Schleicht, spielende Wellen, BWV 206 – in which four rivers, the Danube included, butter up Elector Friedrich August II. (Its cheerful relief that the Vistula is no longer clogged with body parts offers a vivid glimpse into 17th-century daily reality.)

Magnificent works all, and in magnificent scoring. And what a band! Beyond the aforementioned brilliantly buoyant natural trumpets, the melting flute trio, the ever-superb solo oboe, the cello, and strings playing with real intent, there was an eight-singer team (doubling as chorus) that made the heart leap. To single out individuals feels downright caddish – and yet: the round-toned tenderness Stefan Zenkl that showed ; the way Daniel Johannsen (who can breathe life into any text to make the soul smile) and Reginald Mobley (even with a smaller but lively voice) let the duet “Es streiten, es siegen” flow and dance; how Miriam Feuersinger sang her Bellona with intimate intensity – it was delight, pure and simple.

And so the music streamed along joyfully, steered with blissful sureness by Martin Haselböck, fully in his element.

Photocredit: Amar Mehmedinovic

Follow @ClassicalCritic