Koopman Cantatas Amsterdam

Between 1999 and 2006, the legendary baroque music specialist Ton Koopman brought together a stunning array of singers to record the complete cantatas of J.S. Bach alongside his own Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir. Released originally mostly in 3-CD sets, this wonderful cycle is available in its entirety. The 67 separate CDs have now been gathered together in a box with a booklet that includes a complete tracklisting and information about each recording.

The cantatas in this fourteenth series fall into four unequal groups: BWV 26, 123,125 and 178 form part of the second yearly cycle of Leipzig church cantatas, which was abruptly broken off in March 1725.The chorale cantatas - based on strophes of church Lieder or church Lieder paraphrased into recitatives and arias - lent the cycle its distinct character. We do not know any tangible reason for the abrupt break-off, but we may assume that it is connected to the death of the author of Bach's texts, Andreas Stübel, deputy headmaster of the Thomasschule, who is presumed to have died on 31 January 1725.For evidently the composer had at his disposal only texts up to the Marian Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March 1725 (BWV 1).While the texts for BWV 6 and 42 are the work of an unknown poet, in Cantatas BWV 74,68 and 103 Bach set texts by the Leipzig poet Mariane von Ziegler, who evidently filled the gap left by the poet of the chorale cantatas. Finally, BWV 1045 is a sinfonia of a cantata dating from the mid-1740s, the other movements of which have not survived.

Previously begun on Erato, Koopman's cantata cycle was taken over and completed in 2007 on Challenge Classics. It now looks set to surpass the famous Leonhardt-Harnoncourt set on Teldec (and indeed most of his other competitors). Koopman favours an intimate approach to the choruses - namely one voice to a part. Also, he opts for females soloists rather than boys, as would have been the case in Bach's day, and he favours mixed rather than solely male choirs. For many this will be a plus point, and it is good news for fans of Barbara Schlick. He goes for slightly higher than normal pitch - a semi-tone above present day pitch, which, as Christopher Wolff's notes point out, is what Bach used in Mühlhausen and Weimar, brightening the sonority quite a lot. The singing in virtually all the cantatas is pretty impressive and the instrumental playing is of a very high order.

The cantatas in this volume all date from Johann Sebastian Bach's second year of office as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. The series of chorale cantatas, which breaks off in early 1725, forms an almost complete yearly cycle which derives an exceptional unity of style and content from its debt to established Lutheran hymnody. Almost all the cantatas contain the first and last verse of a hymn, the other verses being paraphrased in recitatives and arias. Practically any selection of the chorale cantatas will display the unusually rich variety of form and colour that is one of their most distinctive features.

The tenth volume of the complete recording of Bach's cantatas contains a final group of works (BWV 44, 73, 119 and 134) from the first cycle of 1723-1724. It continues with the first of a substantial series of chorale cantatas that give the second Leipzig cycle of 1724-1725 its particular character. This volume ends with the serenata BWV 134a, which completes the secular cantatas in Volumes 1 to 3; it provided the musical model for the Easter cantata BWV 134, which was composed in 1724. Bach's commitment in composing this second cycle of cantatas went well beyond his undertaking in the previous year. Whereas in the first cycle, existing cantatas from the Weimar period could be found alongside new pieces, the second cycle contains a sequence of newly composed works that continued uninterrupted until the spring of 1725.

This twenty-second and last volume of cantata recordings contains two of Bach's latest cantatas (BWV 30 and 80), including the secular model for BWV 30 and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's arrangement of two movements from BWV 80 dating from after 1750. Also included are the four Kyrie-Gloria masses of the late 1730s; they are very closely associated with the cantata repertoire of the 1720s. These masses are based on selected movements of cantatas dating from the period 1723-6; after an interval of ten or so years Bach reworked them, in most cases very thoroughly. Renowned Bach specialist Ton Koopman (1944) was awarded the 2006 Bach Medal by the city of Leipzig 05 Jun 2006, the final day of this year's annual Leipzig Bach Festival.

The cantatas of volume 20 combine the concluding items from the "Picander" year of 1728-29 with a series of cantatas from the first half of the 1730s. A special feature is the inclusion of a hitherto completely unknown sacred work from Bach’s Weimar period, discovered as recently as May 2005 by Michael Maul (who works in the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig) in the Herzogin Anna Amalia Library, Weimar. This aria of praise dating from 1713, preserved in a newly discovered original source and now assigned the BWV number 1127, supplements Bach’s Weimar cantatas in a felicitous manner. Above all it is the first new work to add to Bach’s vocal output for 70 years, since the discovery of the cantata fragment “Bekennen will ich seinen Namen”, BWV 200.

The cantatas of volume 19 can be relegated to three groups: Four works (BWV 72, 88, 129 and 193) belong to the third Leipzig series, lasting from 1725 to 1727; five (BWV 145, 159, 171, 174 and 188) belong to the group known as the Picander cycle of 1728-29, which was not completed or has not survived complete; two works (BWV 51 and 117) belong to the period after 1730, in which Bach composed new church cantatas only sporadically.

Bach's 200 existing cantatas (100 more have been lost) represent one of music history's most remarkable achievements. The first volume in Erato's ambitious but much-needed traversal of the complete canon contains nine cantatas from Bach's early career. Except for "Christ lag in Todesbanden," these are lesser-known works, yet that doesn't mean they are of lesser quality. Here are some of Bach's most compelling choruses, accompanied by colorful and ingenious instrumental writing. Highlights abound, including the appendices that reproduce Bach's revised versions of cantatas 4 and 21. The choral singing is excellent: sensitive and agile, with unforced tone.

Volume 17 in the Bach cantata series contains exclusively works from the third yearly cycle of cantatas from Leipzig, which, unlike the previous two Leipzig cycles, extends over a longer period of time, from June 1725 until 1727. The cantatas in this volume can be divided into three chronologically distinct groups: December-January 1725-26 (BWV 57, 32), September-October 1726 (BWV 35, 17, 19, 169 and 56) and January-February 1727 (BWV 58 and 84).