Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, March 26, 2002
Issued in the year 2000, this compact disc was a small contribution to the promotion of the Monteverdi Choir cantata tour. Together with the English Baroque Soloists, they performed all the surviving church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach during the course of 2000, on the liturgical days for which they were composed, in different churches around Europe and US. Gardiner talks a little about this endeavor in the line notes: "Bach is probably the only composer whose musical output is so rich, so challenging to the performer and so spiritually uplifting to performer and listener alike, that one would gladly spend a year in his exclusive company."
In 1731, based on a hymn by Philipp Nicolai, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, Bach wrote a chorale cantata with the same title. The text is based on the parable of the ten virgins in the prescribed Gospel reading, Matthew 25: 1-13. Of the seven sections, the first and the last as well as the middle fourth are chorales. Interestingly enough, the middle one, Zion hört die Wächter singen, is for tenors and orchestra. Furthermore, the intermediate pairs of sections are similar in the way that each of the groups begins with a recitative and ends with an Aria/Duet for soprano and bass soli. The duets represent the conversation between Jesus (bass) and the Soul (soprano), while the middle chorale is the song of the watchmen from the Song of Songs.
Initially composed in 1716 for a service in the Weimar chapel on the fourth Sunday in Advent, Cantata BWV 147 was revised by the composer in 1723 for the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Divided into two parts, sung before and after the sermon, this cantata uses five of Salomo Frank's original verses to which Bach added recitative texts in order to make the text more relevant to the Feast. The text takes Mary's words as the paradigm for personal Christian proclamation and encourages the congregation to bear witness to Christ freely with "heart and lips, thy whole behavior" (Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben). The final chorale is the famous Jesus bleibet meine Freude, a reiteration of the one ending the first part, Wohl mir, dass ich Jesum habe, later on transcribed for keyboard by Myra Hess as the extremely profound and noble Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.
It's been said that the importance of Gardiner's performances consist of the use of authentic instruments and as a consequence the whole sonority changes mostly because of the lowered tuning (a'=415 Hz). However, the critics don't always remember the quality of the musicians who, at least in these versions of Bach's 140 and 147, are exceptional, from the soloists to the orchestra and chorus members. The tempi and the dynamics altogether with the phrasing and the musical expression are well determined by the musicians led by John Eliot Gardiner. We should remind the reader that those parameters were hardly notated in Bach's time, fact that has determined so much confusion in time. The bouncy articulation and the happiness of the singing or playing lines make this recording a fresh and even modern interpretation of these two masterpieces of the musical world.
I left at the end a word about the cover presentation of this compact disc. The picture strikes the viewer with a contrasting black and white image of two different worlds, or if you wish, different eras. The present is the background, dark (night), on a city street, where the details are intentionally fuzzy suggesting maybe the diffuse life of contemporary people. However, in the center of the viewer's attention, the bright 1748 E.G. Haussmann painting of Bach on the case of a double bass reveals the clarity and serenity of a disappeared time. And it looks like we, the viewers (read the listeners), feel closer to that world because we can just "see" the stillness of the moving double bass.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One small correction, March 12, 2006
The Amazon listing for this disk shows a release date in 2000. Actually, this disk was originally released in 1992 and re-released in 2000. At least one of the guest reviewers also says it was recorded in 2000. I have the disk and consider it to be excellent, my only reservation being the recording itself which is not quite up to the technical quality of the Gardiner/Bach recordings actually made in 2000.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a voice teacher and early music fan, November 14, 2006
STUNNING RENDITIONS OF TWO OF BACH'S MOST ATTRACTIVE CANTATAS!
Without a doubt these are two of Bach's most attractive cantatas, and fortunately for us are performed by the very excellent Monteverdi Choir under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner, who is probably the leading authority on the music of Bach. The soloists are the best and sing with great skill and emotion.
The first cantata 'Wachet auf,ruft uns die Stimme'opens up with a rousing chorale familiar to most of us. The tenor voice of Anthony Rolfe Johnson announces 'He comes, He comes, the Bridegroom comes!' A conversation takes place between the Soul (soprano-Ruth Holton) and Jesus (bass-Stephen Varcoe): "When comest Thou, my Saviour?".'I come now'. Holton sounds so much like a boy soprano that I had to keep checking the line-up; but this partially explains why the Monteverdi Choir does not need boy sopranos to get the correct baroque sound; their sopranos have light, breathy sounds that lend themselves to the kind of music they frequently sing. This cantata was written for the 27th Sunday after Trinity which took place on Nov. 25th,1731.
The cantata "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben" was written for the fourth Sunday in Advent, Dec. 20,1716, and is based on the Gospel reading: Luke 1:39-56. This text takes Mary's words (Magnificat) as the paradigm for personal Christian proclamation, thus encourging the congregation to bear witness to Christ freely. When I first listened to this disc, it seemed to be over before it started; I enjoyed it so much.One of the high points for me personally was the exquisitely beautful "Schame dich, o Seele, nichtu" sung so emotionally by Michael Chance (countertenor), who, in my opinion, sings Bach better than anyone else anywhere.
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~ Gotthold Schwarz
~ Johann Sebastian Bach
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