Sunday 21 December 2008

This weekend was occupied with listening to twelve Bach church cantatas! All performed by Sigiswald Kuijken and his team.

At the end of it, I am full of admiration for Bach and for his ability to churn out week after week high-class, high quality music of real and long-term interest. Also admiring of the Kuijken team for sustaining interest and performance standards; I now have one volume left to listen to of Kuijken's current seven volumes in his new cantata series.

This weekend has confirmed my view that Bach's instrumental parts in these cantatas are at least as important as the vocal parts (and frequently even more challenging for the musicians). I also, at last, now agree with Kuijken (and others) that in the church cantatas, it makes perfect sense to use just four voices for the choruses and chorales. Whatever the historical rights and wrongs, four voices confirm the intimate chamber music nature of these church cantatas. I will find it difficult to go back to the choirs of Gardiner or Herreweghe.

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