Are these the best, the deepest, the profoundest -- in a word, the greatest -- recordings of these four Bach cantatas ever made? What a silly question! Indeed, what an utterly beside-the-point question and surely a question that neither the conductor, the performers, or even the composer would ever have thought to ask. The real question is: are these recordings musically, emotionally, and spiritually honest recordings, that is, do they capture the true essence of the works? And the answer to that question is a grateful "yes ...
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Are these the best, the deepest, the profoundest -- in a word, the greatest -- recordings of these four Bach cantatas ever made? What a silly question! Indeed, what an utterly beside-the-point question and surely a question that neither the conductor, the performers, or even the composer would ever have thought to ask. The real question is: are these recordings musically, emotionally, and spiritually honest recordings, that is, do they capture the true essence of the works? And the answer to that question is a grateful "yes." While John Eliot Gardiner has not always been ideally matched with the repertoire he's recorded -- does anyone recall his Janácek Sinfonetta or Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances? -- he has always been ideally suited to the music of the Baroque -- who cannot recall his Monteverdi Vespers or his Handel Messiah? -- and his series of Bach cantatas has been as good as the best things he's ever recorded. In these performances with the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists...
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