These performances were the final ones in John Eliot Gardiner’s “Bach Cantata Pilgrimage”, a project that began on Christmas Day, 1999 in Weimar, Germany and ended at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York on New Year’s Eve, 2000. In keeping with Gardiner’s aim to perform all of the cantatas “on the liturgical feasts for which they were composed”, this disc includes works written for the Sunday after Christmas and for New Year’s Day.
From the sound of it, the concert must have been a very festive occasion, the tone set by a lively and rhythmically well-articulated rendition of Bach’s greatest motet, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied BWV 225. No, this isn’t a Christmas-season work, but it shares text with the New Year’s Day cantata BWV 190 that concludes the program–and besides, it’s a wonderful concert opener! Gardiner’s forces, which understandably haven’t always been “on” for each of the dozens of performances over the course of the pilgrimage’s many weeks, certainly are in the groove here–confident, spirited, and concerted in their expressions of the joy, praise, prayerfulness, and hope inherent in these five works.
Besides his always-fine chorus and orchestra, Gardiner benefits here from first-rate vocal soloists, especially tenor James Gilchrist and bass Peter Harvey, who enliven everything they sing. Their duet in the New Year’s Day cantata BWV 190, accompanied by Katherine McGillivray’s lovely viola d’amore obbligato, is a highlight of the disc. Others include the aforementioned Singet dem Herrn and the glorious second-movement motet from BWV 28, Nun lob, mein Seel den Herren. Special mention also should go to the sound engineers who managed to keep things in decent balance while capturing the ambience of concert performance. Purely from a Bach lover’s standpoint, this is one of the more successful efforts from this very ambitious and somewhat uneven series, and therefore makes a reliable addition to a serious Bach cantata collection. [12/7/2007]
