BACH. Cantatas—No. 8, Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?; No. 78, Jesu, der du meine Seele; No. 99, Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan. Julianne Baird (sop); Allan Fast (alto); Frank Kelley (ten); Jan Opalach (bass); Bach Ensemble / Joshua Rifkin. L'Oiseau-Lyre Florilegium (E) a) 421 728-20H (58 minutes: DDD). Texts and translations included.

Cantata No. 78—comparative version: Schmithiisen, Brett, Crook, Kooy, Chapelle Royale, Herreweghe (10/88) HMC90 1270

Herreweghe (Harmonia Mundi) couples Cantata No. 78 with the indispensable Trauerode, No. 198, whereas Rifkin places it in a firm context: one of three cantatas first performed in successive weeks in 1724, part-way through Bach's second cycle of cantatas (June 1724 to spring 1725). There is at present no alternative recording of any of these other cantatas on CD and, since they are all highly desirable, Bach lovers must endure the frustration engendered by duplication. All three cantatas (Nos. 8, 78 and 99) have the same form: an elaborate opening setting of the chorale and a simple closing one frame 'operatic' recitatives and arias; in the case of No. 99 Bach closes with the original harmonization of the tune by Daniel Vetter, its composer (c.1690).

Once again Rifkin adheres to his proposition that single copies meant one instrument or voice per part, and that this was the practice in Leipzig—"Four voices were a choir". Whilst it provokes the question, "Why, in a climate of economy, might not two have read from one copy—as instrumentalists still often do?"—in these particular cantatas it seems apporopriate. A choir are called for only in the outer numbers and the texts are personal pleas, here made by single representatives of the basic varieties of human vocal kind; the overall balance of weight and colour is admirable, and the choral items gain in clarity of texture and diction—as compared with those of Herreweghe in No. 78, in which there are four voices per part.

This is the fourth of Rifkin's Bach cantata discs for L'Oiseau-Lyre; only Jan Opalach, a fine bass who gives himself 'Herz, Mund und Seele' to the text's abundant sound-imagery, appears on them all. The rest of the tale is of permutation and replacement, and the present group are perhaps the best yet, unexceptionable both individually and in their blending. Wind instruments, notably the flute, played an enhanced role in the secondperiod cantatas and their players in the Bach Ensemble are of high quality, as are also the strings, pointing the pathos with discreetly lozenged notes. Although 1 lean towards Rifkin's sentient and vividly articulated performances, the margin is so small that the ultimate choice (if one must be made) hinges on the works with which Cantata No. 78 is coupled—and that I must leave to the reader. J.D.