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One happy byproduct of the Bach 2000 celebrations has been the examination of Bach's musical roots in 17th-century Germany and the rediscovery of talented composers from the generations between
Heinrich Schütz and J.S. Bach.
Philippe Herreweghe is one of the most respected Bach conductors in the world; this release is his contribution to that musical reexamination. The six brief cantatas on this disc are relatively small-scaled--all are for singers with a small ensemble of strings--and they tend toward the contemplative rather than the extroverted. Even Franz Tunder's cantata on Luther's famous chorale "Ein feste Burg" ("A mighty fortress is our God") seems fairly serene, without the triumphal aspect that Bach gave the tune in his Cantata
BWV 80. These works sound rather more like Schütz (a rhetorical, almost madrigalesque style) than Bach (dense counterpoint)--although
Gott, sei mir gnädig by Johann Kuhnau (Bach's predecessor in Leipzig) closes with a fugal chorus that could almost pass for
Handel. Herreweghe's musicians perform as admirably as always; however, the Schütz-like text-centered quality in the music seems to suit a solo-voice consort better than 14-voice choir Herreweghe uses here. Indeed, in the latest of these cantatas, Christoph Graupner's
Herr, die Wasserströme (full of storm imagery), it seems Herreweghe is holding back a bit--he can't let his choir rip the way an ensemble of soloists such as
Cantus Cölln could. It's a bit ironic, really, in that the six soloists are all marvelous: while this is a very good recording, it could have been much better had Herreweghe saved the money he paid his choristers.
--Matthew Westphal
