This release is part of a set of Bach cantata recordings by the Belgian group Il Gardellino and director Marcel Ponseele: not an entire new Bach cantata cycle but a set of thematically oriented recordings that may also include works by other composers. "De profundis" (from the depths) offers three cantatas based on Psalm 130, which begins with the words "From the depths I cry to thee, Lord" and was translated into German in several ways. The overall idea is close to that of John Eliot Gardiner's cantata cycle, where ...
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This release is part of a set of Bach cantata recordings by the Belgian group Il Gardellino and director Marcel Ponseele: not an entire new Bach cantata cycle but a set of thematically oriented recordings that may also include works by other composers. "De profundis" (from the depths) offers three cantatas based on Psalm 130, which begins with the words "From the depths I cry to thee, Lord" and was translated into German in several ways. The overall idea is close to that of John Eliot Gardiner's cantata cycle, where cantatas were performed during their liturgically appropriate weeks; Ponseele's approach is warm, text-centered, and reverential in tone. His ensemble, however, is entirely different from Gardiner's; Il Gardellino is a chamber group, with one instrument per part and a small choir of seven singers. The choir does not include the four soloists, which avoids one of the pitfalls of chamber-sized performances of this type; choir and soloists are clearly differentiated. They may, in fact, be...
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