Bach: Cantatas, BWV 78, 106
$475.00
- Jesu, der du meine Seele, chorus
- Wir eilen mit schwachen, doch emsigen Schritten, duet for soprano & alto
- Ach, ich bin ein Kind der Sünden, tenor recitative
- Dein Blut, so meine Schuld durchstreicht, tenor aria
- Die Wunden, Nägel, Kron , und Grab, bass recitative
- Nun, du wirst mein Gewissen stillen, bass aria
- Herr, ich glaube, hilf mire Schwachen, chorale
- Sonatina
- Chorus
- Duet
- Chorus
On my top 10 list - Everything on this CD is wonderful, but if it contained only Cantata 78 it would be worth having at almost any price. As other reviewers have noted, the duet between soprano and alto has never been equaled by any other performance. (And, in my view, it is a cause of celebration that we have here a marvelous female alto and not a counter-tenor.) All the debates about original instruments and authentic performance style are beside the point when confronted with an old style performance of such excellence that it will always be in a class by itself. I was so enamored of this recording that I bought a second for backup in case the first ever became lost or damaged and because I assumed that this company might let it go out of print--which has in fact happened. (I did the same thing with another wonderful Vanguard CD set: Handel s Chandos Anthems.) Vanguard (or whoever has perhaps bought out Vanguard) should be bombarded with demands for its reissue. If confronted with the what would you take to a desert island? question, I might well pick this if only allowed one. It would certainly be on my list of top 10.
A KNOCKOUT WAITING TO BE A HIT - If you can find this record you are hereby incited to obtain it by fair means or foul. Everything on it is good. The comparatively well-known Actus Tragicus, Cantata 106, is sombre, grief-laden and desolate, the tempi slow and the expression devotional and unworldly. What is pre-emptive about this disc however is Cantata 78, or rather the second number in Cantata 78, the duet `Wir eilen... for soprano and contralto. It seems that every now and again this comparatively obscure piece comes to someone s notice fortuitously and sets off the same sort of reaction. It apparently achieved fame over the airwaves in at least two widely separated parts of America, a friend of mine picked it instantly as his wedding voluntary, I myself was bowled over by it when I first heard it 35 years ago, gave my copy to my mother thinking I could easily replace it, failed totally to do that and have been searching forlornly for it ever since. Somehow the piece has never `established itself in the way Jesu Joy and Wachet Auf have done. You might hardly recognise it as Bach at all, at least to start with. He can be exuberant indeed, but I can think of nothing by him quite like this. A superficial first hearing almost suggests something from a Mozart opera rather than a Bach Cantata. It is not an elaborate piece at all, just a canonic duet with a simple accompaniment on a small organ. The two singers set each other off beautifully and although Dagmar Hermann really outshines Teresa Stich-Randall that doesn t seem to matter. There is something about the way the voices complement each other, even their oddly different ways of taking breaths, that is simply pleasurable beyond words. The recorded sound is not spectacular, but it doesn t have to be. What is spectacular, though in a very unshowy way, is the duet itself. Do not go to your final reckoning without getting to know it or you may be asked why not.
Sublime voices to match a sublime composition... - Cantata 78 is one of our household s favorite pieces of music...the soprano/alto duet can make you cry...or just merely transport you into the heaven that Bach composed for...
Also KPFA Favorite - This contains the long-unavailable performance of the Cantata 78 duet much beloved by San Francisco Bay Area listeners to KPFA on Sunday mornings. For many years it was the 9 AM introductory theme for Bill Sokol s Sleepers Awake! show, and still precedes Larry Bensky s Sunday Salon.
A Classic Recording Reborn on CD - It is a blessing of cd s that we find this classic recording again available and in a more permanent medium than vinyl disks. My record has long since been stratched beyond endurance as I try to play the Stitch-Randall/Hermann duet that is a minor hit in the Chicago area thanks to WFMT radio. Even if you decide not to buy this recording listen to the duet Amazon and the internet so graciously make available.