This Alpha-label release by soprano Anna Prohaska and the historically inclined chamber ensemble Lautten Compagney was broadly conceived by the singer in 2019 but was fundamentally shaped by the coronavirus pandemic when it came time to make the recording the following year. Prohaska selects cantata arias -- one, or in a few cases, two per cantata -- and chorales, largely on the theme of suffering and death. The idea is to bring home how the reactions experienced by listeners in 2020 were known all too well to those of Bach ...
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This Alpha-label release by soprano Anna Prohaska and the historically inclined chamber ensemble Lautten Compagney was broadly conceived by the singer in 2019 but was fundamentally shaped by the coronavirus pandemic when it came time to make the recording the following year. Prohaska selects cantata arias -- one, or in a few cases, two per cantata -- and chorales, largely on the theme of suffering and death. The idea is to bring home how the reactions experienced by listeners in 2020 were known all too well to those of Bach's time. In the interpretations, too, the virus had its say: these are exceptionally spare Bach readings, beautifully engineered by Alpha. Regardless of what one thinks of the one-voice-per-part treatment of Bach chorales and choruses, that was the only option available to Prohaska and Lautten Compagney, given the restrictions in place at Berlin's Christuskirche when the album was recorded in June of 2020. Prohaska joins the album's other soloists for the chorales and the pieces on...
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