Bach's secular cantatas are not terribly often performed, with the comic Coffee Cantata, BWV 211, probably the most common one. This release is the sixth in the series of secular cantata CDs (are you surprised that there are so many?) by the Bach Collegium Japan under the indefatigable Masaaki Suzuki. The only true Bach work is the first one, Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl, BWV 198, known as the "Trauerode" or "Mourning Ode." This is an elaborate and richly scored work, written for the funeral of the wife of the ...
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Bach's secular cantatas are not terribly often performed, with the comic Coffee Cantata, BWV 211, probably the most common one. This release is the sixth in the series of secular cantata CDs (are you surprised that there are so many?) by the Bach Collegium Japan under the indefatigable Masaaki Suzuki. The only true Bach work is the first one, Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl, BWV 198, known as the "Trauerode" or "Mourning Ode." This is an elaborate and richly scored work, written for the funeral of the wife of the Elector of Saxony, that matches the ambitions of Bach's larger sacred cantatas and differs from those stylistically principally in the greater proportion of pictorial effects. Sample the ingenious bells in the recitative, "Der Glocken bebendes Getön" (track four). Suzuki benefits from an above-average set of soloists here, even by the standards of his ongoing complete Bach edition. The cantata Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden, BWV 1083, is a true Bach oddity, a transcription and German...
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