Johann Sebastian Bach Magnificat

The Belgian early music group Vox Luminis has made several wonderful recordings of lesser-known Baroque repertory. They cultivate a distinctive sound with ten or 15 singers (here there are ten) and a small instrumental group, diverging completely from the general Italianate-operatic trend toward brisk tempos, sharp accents, and dramatic conceptions. Here they take on two very familiar works and meet the challenge of creating unique interpretations. Even in the splendid Bach Magnificat in D major, BWV 243 (sample one of the big choruses, perhaps "Fecit potentiam"), they are smooth and even delicate. The sound is all the more impressive in that leader Lionel Meunier does not really conduct; he sings in the choir itself. Yet the carefully burnished sound is extremely coherent. The effect is to deliver a personal aspect even to these highly public works. In this kind of reading there is the necessity for the performers to deliver text intelligibility and for the instrumentalists to deliver balance, and all succeed nicely, as do Alpha Classics' engineers, working in a pair of churches (Belgian for the Handel, Dutch for the Bach). This is a beautifully rendered representation of standard repertory that draws you into entirely new ways of looking at the music.

It was a real treat to revisit this recording—to be reminded how exuberant the celebratory sections, how crisply articulated both the choral and orchestral performances, how perfectly calibrated and lively the tempos, how buoyant the spirit of the playing and singing. And the solo singing is pretty fine too. Made in Berlin’s Jesus-Christus-Kirche in 1993, the production offers superb sound that conveys a natural presence of singers and instruments while capturing proper balances among the various performance components—there’s a surprising vibrancy to the sound that I don’t recall from the original recording.

With various record labels compiling complete works to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death of Bach, EMI's more accessible approach is this luxurious anthology of the Baroque master's sacred music. Over two and a half hours, this program encompasses the grand scale of the Magnificat in D (BWV 243) and Missa Brevis in A (BWV 234). Between these are scared cantatas, the very popular choral Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 140) contrasting with sensitive solo vocal writing in Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (BWV 12); motets; arias; and an organ prelude and fugue. It's a well-balanced program, covering every aspect of Bach's church music except the Passions.

The Magnificat, written to celebrate Mary’s joy after the Annunciation, and the oldest Christmas Cantata of Bach (Weimar, 1713), are an overwhelming fresco of a Nativity, foundation of the world. With these masterful works, Johann-Sebastian Bach opens for us the gates of the sacred, as well as the ones to our own relationship with spirituality. These pieces, amongst the most beautiful ever composed, are no doubt the best way possible to open the Christmas period. Led here by the very young but nonetheless inspired, Valentin Tournet who conducts his ensemble La Chapelle Harmonique.

The two works performed here are two that have never gone out of fashion, even in the days before the Bach revival, in the darkest times for his reputation, these works were recognized as masterworks and have never been out of the repertoire. La petite bande was founded by Sigiswald Kuijken in 1972. It is a period instruments ensemble which has come to be recognized as having the highest standard of performance in Bach and other composers as well.

The two works performed here are two that have never gone out of fashion, even in the days before the Bach revival, in the darkest times for his reputation, these works were recognized as masterworks and have never been out of the repertoire. La petite bande was founded by Sigiswald Kuijken in 1972. It is a period instruments ensemble which has come to be recognized as having the highest standard of performance in Bach and other composers as well.

Philippe Pierlot and the Ricercar Consort's 2006 recording of Bach's Magnificat brings back the glory days of historically informed performances, those halcyon days in the 1980s when musicians, empowered by scholarship and energized by virtuosity, were recording the Baroque repertoire with the zeal of the newly converted. Though Pierlot and his musicians are of a younger generation, they bring a missionary fervor to the music, a program of Bach's Magnificat, BWV 243, and Missa Brevis, BWV 235, interspersed with two well-chosen organ works, the Fuga sopra il Magnificat, BWV 733, and the Präludium und Fuga, BWV 541. Pierlot's textures are clean, his rhythms buoyant, his colors bright, and tempos brisk, but not rushed in the fast movements, and contemplative but not moribund in the slow movements.