Bach Kuhnau

'Herzens-Lieder' [Songs of the Heart] – this title would certainly have appealed to the two librettists and four composers featured upon this CD. In terms of music and church history, they all – Johann Kuhnau, Georg Philipp Telemann, Christoph Graupner and Johann Sebastian Bach – form part of the Lutheran church choir tradition.

Bach's setting of the Magnificat is one of his most often-recorded vocal works; as a rule, it's paired with one of Bach's lavishly scored festal cantatas. (The Easter Oratorio seems to be a current favorite.) Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan had a different idea: they've paired Bach's Magnificat with roughly contemporary settings by Johann Kuhnau, who was Bach's immediate predecessor in Leipzig, and Jan Dismas Zelenka, who was a composer at the court of Saxony in Dresden. Zelenka is an interesting composer, among the most underrated of the Baroque era. His writing is less dense and intricate than Bach's–at times it looks forward to the simpler, more elegant style of Haydn and C.P.E. Bach. Zelenka knew his counterpoint, however, and was fond of slipping the occasional surprising chord change into his music.

In the early 1730s Bach revised his E flat major Magnificat of 1723, transposing it to D major and omitting the interpolations peculiar to Christmas performances in Leipzig. (Recent research suggests such richly scored Latin Magnificats could be performed in Lutheran churches at some 15 annual festivals, not just the three – Xmas, Easter, Ascension – previously supposed.)

Widely regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of Bach's music today, Masaaki Suzuki has made his name both as the artistic director of the Bach Collegium Japan and as a performer on the harpsichord and the organ. Much interest has been focussed on the BCJ/Suzuki series of Bach Cantatas, begun in 1995 and reaching its final stretch with the recent release of Volume 46 (of a projected 55 discs). Hailed by the international music press, this monumental undertaking has acquired a world-wide following. From the very beginning of the collaboration with BIS, however, there have been numerous recording projects beyond the sacred cantatas of Johannes Sebastian, and, indeed, beyond Bach himself. Some of these acclaimed recordings can now be found in a limited edition boxed set, released in connection with the 20th anniversary of Bach Collegium Japan this year.

Johann Kuhnau was one of life’s polymaths—as well as being a composer he trained as a lawyer, spoke several languages, helped found Leipzig’s opera house, theorized about music and even found time to write a novel sending up the shortcomings of the contemporary music scene. Musically he’s the link between Schütz and Bach, but he was alive to many different stylistic traits as this selection of sacred music demonstrates. From the brilliantly brassy opening of Ihr Himmel jubilirt to the restrained intensity of Tristis est anima mea, it’s music invigorated at every turn by The King’s Consort.

Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722), Bach's eternal 'predecessor' as Leipzig's Thomaskantor, has only been rediscovered in recent years and his true greatness has not yet been truly recognised. He was highly respected by his contemporaries, however, and not just as a musician: he had a doctorate, worked as a lawyer, wrote satirical novels - a polymath… His musical oeuvre must have been extensive, much of it is lost. It is therefore all the more pleasing that his magnificent Christmas cantata "Frohlocket, ihr Volker, und jauchzet, ihr Heiden" ['Rejoice, ye nations, and shout for joy, ye heathen'] has been preserved. It opens the programme on this CD and, with its instrumentation and duration of over 25 minutes, surpasses many a great cantata by his famous successor.