VIBRANT READINGS OF OUTSTAdkNG CANTATAS FROM EARLY LEIPZIG Robin Blaze's 'ear and mind for discovering musical sense behind the notes is palpable'

Cantatas, Volume 21 * 4

Cantatas - No 65, Sic werden aus Saba alic kommen; No 81,Jesus schiaft, was soil ich hof; No 83, Frfreute Zeit irn neuen Bunde; No 190. Singer dens Herrn cin neucs Lied Robin Blaze cwnurroen James Gilchrist ten Peter Kooy bass Bach Collegium Japan I Masaaki Suzuki BIS OF BlS-CD1311 (70 minutes: DOD) Texts and translations included

Cantata ,\'o 190- ,eluted ompa?7son: Am1erdiini Barque Ch and Orcb, Kooprnan '419S) (ERA 1) 3984-21629-2

Another meticulously prepared volume in this distinguished series comprises the late festivities of Christmas 1724 and two Epiphany works from a few weeks later. Taken from the first of Bach's annual cantata cycles, these four works reveal the astonishing variety and textual (and textural) coloration which the composer exercised in this period of free-wheeling creativity from his early months of employment in Leipzig. That is not to say that subsequent cycles, with their increasing manipulation of the chorale melody for formal unity, present any less imaginative a vista. It's just that cantatas such as Nos 65 and 81 provide an especially telling and unabashed representative streak: in the former case, an opening chorus where Old and New Testament texts are conflated to form a graphic illumination of the congregating Gentiles -notably Wise Men - setting off for Bethlehem ('All they from Sheba shall come'). While the instrumentation of horns, recorders, oboes da caccia and strings captures the spiciness of eastern promise, Suzuki imbues the whole with a relaxed and soft-grained - . pastoral regality. This is further exemplified in the - easy delivery of the aria --21 'Nimm mich dir zia eigen' in which James Gilchrist performs with supreme awareness, beckoning the listener to inhabit his world: this is exceptionally characterised singing by any standards and Suzuki shouldn't look back.

No less successful is the way Bach Collegiumn Japan embraces the Christmas message in the incomplete Cantata No 190. Lost is the first section of the autograph - and most of the performing materials - where Bach, under pressure, probably removed the parts for performance in a new 'secular' guise, as was his wont. Imaginative reconstruction can bring this work to life and Masato Suzuki has found a majestic solution to the opening chorus, which his namesake realises with the kind of abandon one hears too rarely from him. Ton Koopman's own reworking is also a tour tie force but less refined, even if the Amsterdam forces project the powerful Reformation-like Te Deum unison (ii la Einfeste Burg) with greater force.

Both Epiphany works dispense with a large choral involvement. Cantata No 81 is a mesmerisingly compact piece in which St Matthew's account of Jesus calming the Storm provides the arresting imagery for three fine arias. The middle movement is the set-piece par excellence, truly operatic in its posturing bravura and burning focus of conceit (conveyed primarily in the restless accompaniment). Gilchrist again brings tremendous commitment and open-heartedness with the kind of cultivated vocal élan of great Bach tenors in the Helmut Krebs and Anton Dermota mould. Both Robin Blaze and Peter Kooy perform their arias with customary distinction. Blaze's big moment occurs in the opening movement of Cantata No 83, a large da capo aria constructed around a First Branden burg-style orchestral ritornelku, in which Blaze's ear and mind for discovering musical sense behind the notes is palpable. Altogether, this volume can claim to he among the front rank so far. Jonathan Freernan-Attwood