Customer Reviews

Bach: Sacred Cantatas

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For a long time I was in doubt I should buy this set of CDs. After all, you don't spend hundreds of dollars, for 60 CDs, just out of a moment's thought! But let me tell you: These CDs are worth every cent!

This recording features all known sacred cantatas by Bach (about 200) in the best possible approximation to how they were performed in Bach's time: Baroque instruments, boy/men choirs, and almost all soprano solos are sung by boys, while alto solos are sometimes sung by boys, sometimes by countertenors.

The recordings were made over a number of years. The earlier ones feature mostly the Vienna Boy's Choir, while the later ones mostly are done by the Tölzer Knabenchor and the Knabenchor Hannover. A good number of soloists appear (too many to list here), and they are all at least very good, some are stunningly good! You have to hear the treble Peter Jelosits or the boy alto Panito Iconomou! Or Sebastian Hennig, or Helmut Wittek, and so many more... Listening to these CDs is untroubled enjoyment!

In my collection there are about 20 other recordings of Bach cantatas. Comparing them to the Harnoncourt/Leonhardt set, in only ONE case did another recording win: a tenor cantata sung by Peter Schreier. In ALL OTHER cases the recording reviewed here was superior!

I thought that it would be monotonous to listen to 200 Bach cantatas... Wrong! The genius of Bach, combined with this incredible performance, made me devour the 60 CDs at a stretch, over a full week, without loosing attention!

This is first-class music, by one of the best composers of all time, marvelously performed and perfectly recorded. Buy it. Don't wait as long as I did!

Had this set not been made, then the history of performance practice in the last quarter of the 20th century and beyond would have proceeded very differently. Had this set not been made we would not have many of the current leading figures in the field of early music performance, nearly all of whom were in some way connected with the performance revolution which found its most profound expression in these recordings. For it was during the 14 or so years of this recording project (between 1971 and 1985) that three of the greatest musicians of our time, Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Frans Bruggen forever altered the public's perception of the surviving remnants of Bach's fabled, but rarely heard, "Jahrgaenge", or yearly cycles of church cantatas. For this reason alone, this recording is of profound importance.

Leonhardt, with his consort in Amsterdam, and Harnoncourt, with his Concentus Musicus of Vienna shared the task of recording, with an unmatched team of vocal and instrumental soloists, Bach's roughly 200 surviving "concerti sacri", perhaps a further hundred being lost to us. It was a repertoire more honoured in the history books than experienced in performance. This enterprise changed that state of affairs for ever.

The arguments which are now sometimes made (chiefly by those who are unaware of the extraordinary and revolutionary step which these performances represented), decrying the slightly "raw" (I prefer "vocal") sound of original instruments, or the occasional shakiness of a boy soprano soloist, miss the point of this enterprise, which was to present the music in a new way using Bach's own contemporary resources. Leonhardt and Harnoncourt are the first to insist that using "historical instruments" makes sense because those are simply the best tools for the job. Re-constituting something old has never been their aim. Rather, their idea was to break free of the mindless tradition of performance which took no account of the sounds that Bach actually had in his head when he created his "well-regulated" music for the churches of Saxony. And how does this work in practice? We are left to marvel at an extraordinary level of accomplishment on the part of nearly everyone associated with this project, vocally and instrumentally.

Gustav Leonhardt was well aware (and hopeful) that subsequent generations would likely improve upon aspects of performance which still remained to be sorted out. But, as he said, it was a start. Indeed, when he and Harnoncourt were jointly awarded the Erasmus prize in the Netherlands in 1980, he remarked, with singular modesty and self-awareness: "It was not done well, but it is remarkable that it was done at all". This tells us more about Leonhardt's famous humility, than it does about the standards of these performances, which are usually (with few exceptions) very high indeed. In many instances they will never be surpassed. What we have here is a glimpse of one of music's "golden" ages captured forever on disc. What the listener will marvel at is the extraordinary assuredness of technique and style which is evident in every one of these cantata performances.

The solo vocal contributions of Kurt Equiluz, Max van Egmond, Paul Esswood, Marjanne Kweksilber (BWV 51) are simply without equal, and the current generation of fine Bach singers would be the first to concede their enormous debt to the participants in this great enterprise (their teachers, in many cases). The choirs should also be singled out for attention: Wiener Sangerknaben, Tolzer Knabenchor, Hannover Knabenchor, Choir of Kings College, Cambridge as well as directors Heinz Hennig, Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden, Philippe Herreweghe, David Willcocks and Hans Gillesberger. So Europe's finest were all involved in this.

The instrumental soloists: Frans Bruggen, Walter van Hauwe, Kees Boeke, Anner Bylsma, Jurg Schaftlein, Lucy van Dael, Sigiswald, Wieland and Bart Kuijken, Ton Koopman, Bob van Asperen, Lidewij Schiefes, Alice Harnoncourt, Herbert and Herwig Tachezi, Erich Hobarth, Friedemann Immer - to list only the more familiar names - have created a whole world of intelligent and vital performance which has transformed musical thought in our time. No-one in any area of musical performance has remained untouched by the ideas which are so forcefully presented here (even those who'd be the last to admit it). The fundamental idea of treating each period's music as a vital and representative product of its time is one which now extends to music of all periods, signaling the fulfilment of one of Leonhardt's and Harnoncourt's chief aims: to eliminate the artificial distinction between mainstream and "early" music, and, instead, to treat all music with proper respect for its origins and context.

What this recording continues to offer the listener is the experience of hearing the music for the first time, which the technical polish of subsequent surveys cannot quite match. For the young person wishing to learn about music, there is no better starting point than investing in this set, now available at a fraction of its original cost (unfortunately, minus the scores, which were one of the hallmarks of this series in its first incarnation on LP.

It seems pointless to list highlights, but one might start with the following: BWV 1, 6, 8, 11, 13, 19, 23, 29 and so on. The list is endless. Better still, buy the set and begin a life-time's voyage of discovery instead. Bach, Leonhardt and Harnoncourt: you can't do better than that. Oh, and we should also acknowledge the contribution of the founder recording producer for this project, Wolf Erichson (even though he didn't stay with Teldec to the end of it). Without him, the revolution in informed and intelligent music performance on recordings would never have happened.

This set of almost 200 cantatas is, without a doubt, a milestone in recording history, and that alone makes it valuable. There are now at least two other competing sets on the market (Helmuth Rilling's complete set--on modern instruments, alas!--and Ton Koopman's period performance set still in the works), but this one, warts and all, still captivates and draws the listener into the world of Bach's cantatas like no other.

I would argue that no one can really claim to know Bach without knowing both his organ works and his cantatas. After all, this is the music that occupied him for most of his professional life. Most of these cantatas were written as part of his duties at Leipzig, and while in the hands of any lesser composer that might have meant uninspired music cranked out week by week out of necessity, Bach rarely, if ever, had an off day. Each cantata is a little world unto itself, a place you can retreat to for 20 minutes and either reflect on their spiritual message (which, be warned, is sometimes grim indeed), or just lose yourself in the beauty and grace of the melodic lines.

Harnoncourt and Leonhardt choose to keep these performances intimate; this is not the Bach of the concert hall; these are direct, personal expressions that work well in the private space of one's living room. Some of the playing sounds a bit shaky by today's standards--apparently some of the soloists were still discovering how to play period instruments that had not been heard in centuries--and the boy soloists seem to strain at their parts sometimes, especially in the earlier recordings, but that only adds to the charm: I much prefer the uncertain readings to letter-perfect performances offered by others. The performances actually draw the listener's attention away from the playing itself, forcing attention on the music and the text, which is entirely consistent with the nature of these pieces.

For those who don't want to spend the 500+ dollars all at once, Teldec also offers these in six-CD sets at a great budget price. They're worth every penny. My only disappointment is that the CD package doesn't include the scores, as the old Telefunken vinyl sets did. But that's perfectly understandable. This set reminds us why Harnoncourt and Leonhardt were once at the forefront of the period-instrument movement. Let's hope that Teldec keeps these recordings in print for a long, long time.

This complete set of Bach sacred cantatas is not only a bargain price, but it contains some of the most profound interpretations these pieces ever had. Recorded during the 1970s on period instruments, with some of most prodiguous singers (Equiluz, Esswood) and an outstanding orchestral support, this is the best integral collection of cantatas there is. In order to restore the forgotten sence of baroque music, instrumentation is reduced to a minimum, the continuo is supported with antique instruments such as the basoon, tenors have been thoughtfully selected as NON-operatic. Another reconstructionist aspect was the use of boy choirs, which in later recordings Harnoncourt gave up. Boy choirs are not only authentical, but have the advantage of pitch purity. While in some arias (such as the extraordinary duet "lobe den herren" - BWV 137) this seems an excellent choice, in most it fails in more or less apparent manner.

While Herreweghe's or Gardiner's new interpretations are CERTAINLY better in both orchestral and vocal support, they all are greatly in debt of Harnoncourt/Leonhard, for it's always simple to improve something ALREADY existing instead of breaking new grounds (as this stellar 1970's recording did). Not to be forgotten is the fact newer version bring a sence of lightness which pleases anyone's ears, but it's manytimes inappropriate for the content of the music.

If you like your Bach with a heavy Bernstein beat, operatic sopranos, and a huge concert hall sound, or in contrast if you would like to hear Bach as his parishoners did, then these recordings are probably not for you. If you want excellent recordings of the Bach Cantatas using period instruments and boys' voices, to include the occasional flaw, then this discounted, but still pricy set is for you. Here, for the first time, anyone can explore and study the marvels of Bach's Jahrgaenge close to the way it was meant to be heard.

When one considers that Bach had to produce a new cantata each week, and that the performers were local musicians, then one should not expect a perfect performance. When one recalls that the Cantata merely served to reinforce the message of the week according to the church calendar, one should not expect consistently brilliant music. To this, add the fact that the parishioners would have much preferred someone not so old fashioned as Bach to produce their church music. Set up so perfectly for failure, Bach produced some of the most perfect music ever written. Here, bad Bach does not exist.

The use of boys' voices is brilliant. A boy soprano simply does not sound like a woman. A good boy soprano's voice is clear and pure, without the extreme tremolo found in "trained women sopranos." The result is Bach at its purest.

In the mid to late 1950's, preforming Bach on original instruments became an interesting experiment. One group attempting this was the Bach Aria Group, directed by Frank Brief, who performed at the Town Hall in New York City. Over a two year span, Mr. Brief decided that it might be interesting to use a boy's choir instead of a women's choir once each year. He chose the Columbus Boychoir (now called the American Boychoir) of which I was a member for those two occasions. From the critical reviews, the results were very well accepted. Mr. Brief, however, did not go the full way. Instead of using boy soprano soloists, he called on women sopranos such as Beverly Sills. While they gave outstanding performances, it was not "original Bach." But when we asked why didn't he use a boy soprano, Mr. Brief responded that boys' voices could not be sufficiently trained to do Bach justice.

These recordings belie this judgement. Bach did know what he was doing! Highly recommended.

The big CD collection of Harnoncourt is really to recommend to everybody who is interested in.
It is a wonderful collection, with alle the works of Bach.The whole Box is amazing and every song is fantastic.
It also looks very good wehn you put it into the shelf.
The price is really justified in accord to the number of CD and the quality you get.

There's not much that I can possibly add to the review of these performances that hasn't already been stated except to only say that these ARE definitive! There are no other performances of the cantatas that come close to these, as good as some of the other may be.
These recordings from over thirty years ago set THE standard for early music and for performing Bach's vocal/choral works.
Perfection realized!
I just hope that this doesn't go out of print before I'm able to afford this most desirable collection.

I love Bach's cantatas. They are a monument to his protestant faith. Contrasting with the Biblical lyrics in the cantatas is the artwork on the covers of the Cd's, and on the boxes. They're disgusting catholic icons of the apostles. You couldn't have picked anything to contrast more with the pure music within than iconography characterized by paganism and Catholicism. Try the cheaper version of this set. It might not have all the terrible art.