Spirit Folge 2

Another recording dedicated to the music of Caspar Joseph Mertz, the court guitarist of Empress Carolina Augusta whose performances became famous throughout Austria, Hungary and Germany during the 1800s, making him one of the most sought-after musicians in 19th-century Europe. Today he is best remembered for the successful Barden-Klänge (Bardic Sounds), the focus of 94773; here we have a chance to become acquainted with a great many other works he composed for six-string guitar.

One of Bach's more magnificent extended choruses graces the cantata BWV 12, and another less substantial but no less impressive one dominates BWV 38. These works represent some of Bach's most profoundly affecting and musically sophisticated textual and emotional representations, the former an ideal evocation of "weeping and wailing" with its unmistakably vivid chromatic descending bass-line, lurching rhythm, and agonized melody (which Bach later re-used in his B minor Mass). The pungent, reedy sound of the oboe adds perfect color and character to the whole cantata, and of course, Bach's ingenious writing, especially the obbligato parts, lifts all three of these cantatas beyond the functional to the highest artistic and spiritual level.

This set is a rerelease of recordings made in 1991, not previously reviewed in Read more . In the order listed in the header, these four cantatas were composed for the following festal days in the liturgical church calendar: the Third Sunday in Advent, the Feast of St. John the Baptist, Pentecost, and Easter Sunday. All stem from the time of the younger Bach’s increasingly fractious and unhappy years as director of music in Halle, which spanned 1747 to 1764. The first of these is definitely known to have been written in 1749; the dates for the others are less certain, but stem from the mid to late 1750s.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion is, along with the St Matthew Passion, without doubt one of the most important works he ever composed. It established a new tradition for Good Friday vespers in Leipzig, and with sublime skill Bach managed to retain a spirit of church worship while creating an almost operatic narrative that movingly depicts Christ’s trial, death, and ultimate apotheosis. Bach’s numerous revisions always demand a certain amount of scholarly decision-making, and this recording of the St John Passion uses the final 1749 version that not only draws on and reinforces the best of Bach’s original concept, but incorporates the additional movements of the 1725 version.

A warm welcome to this reissue which has a cleaner sound than the original L'OiseauLyre. Dame Janet is on what sounds to be her best form, with almost impeccable intonation and a warmth which gives the performances an intense glow. Vergnügte Ruh' begins with a haunting melody of such expressive dimensions that, for me, the remainder of the cantata is something of an emotional unwinding. On numerous other levels, however, the succeeding movements are satisfying and well contrasted with one another.