The word “aria” as this disc’s title carries a meaning beyond the generally accepted one. According to the brief but hyper-“poetic” notes (“Let us guess the movement of the hand that writes, powerfully, serenely, pressing hard on the paper with a pliant pen, the notes so shaped as to veer from the uprights that are the preserve of the bar lines marking the pitiless flow of time.”) the point of this program is to observe and appreciate Bach’s ever-present “vocality”, “voluptuousness”, if you will, “of sound, the pleasure of a curved line, in its most carnal, most sensitive and most gentle essence of human expression.” You get the idea (although it really does read better in the original French!). The problem is, as good an idea as this programming is, placing instrumental and vocal works side by side to show their inherent “singability”, the choice of three boy soloists to sing arias from four of Bach’s cantatas was not a good one. These young voices, which I’m sure are completely sincere and show considerable promise (especially soprano Antoine Walter), are just too unsteady and lack the kind of technical authority and assuredness that we’re used to these days in works of this stature. The singing doesn’t even redeem itself by being sweet or precious–it’s awkward and slightly nervous, and it will make listeners uncomfortable to listen to it, especially alto Bertrand Domenichini in his unevenly phrased, intonationally challenged aria from BWV 12. And when taken in context, the recording balances and timbres of the accompanying instruments generally tend to overwhelm the solo singers.
As for the instrumental selections, they certainly have the requisite authority, but the recording gives a distorted view of balances–too much cello here, not enough there; too much oboe, not enough harpsichord. Strangely, the harpsichord’s sound varies in heft and breadth depending on what it’s playing. The adagio of the cello sonata finds it strong and full, but in the following allegro–and when playing solo–it fades and rather tinkles too much, which is not what you want in a tour de force like the Italian Concerto. Recording the Bach arias with oboe (in all its forms, including oboe d’amore and oboe da caccia) is a wonderful idea for a CD program. It’s been tried several times before (see review of countertenor Daniel Taylor’s recording on Atma), but never with full success. I certainly won’t give up the search, in spite of disappointing efforts such as this.
