These four Ascension Day cantatas span 10 years of Bach’s life in Leipzig, from No 37, first performed in May 1724, to the so-called Ascension Oratorio, No 11, which represents one of the composer’s rare cantata creations from the mid-1730s – although its ‘narrated’ text places it in a distinctive category. With an authoritative but affectionate turn of phrase in her notes, Bach scholar Ruth Tatlow persuasively imparts how these works contain vital clues to Bach’s state of mind, linked to key points of autobiography: although the Ascension narrative is a joyous ‘imprimatur’ on all that is implied from Easter Day onwards, Bach still pines with more than just a statutory conceit when he sets the words, ‘Thy departure and early separation causes me exceeding great pain’ (from ‘Ach, bleibe doch’, No 11, later to be transformed as the Agnus Dei of the B minor Mass). From all the anticipation and hope that Leipzig brought to the Bachs, there had by 1735 been a litany of disputes with authorities and, as Tatlow poignantly puts it, ‘five small graves to visit’.
Gardiner’s generous disc offers recordings made more than seven years ago (Nos 11, 37 and 43) and not released before, joined by No 128 from sessions last year. The 1993 accounts are certainly as ebullient and uplifting as you would wish to hear. If not quite as free-breathed as Herreweghe’s effervescent reading of Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen, Gardiner’s is a fine performance by any standards. The splendid outer choruses are full of bite and light-headed accentuation, never glib but equally eshewing the temptation for soggy grandeur. The solo singing is from an era of Gardiner’s Bach when he had, it seems, a rather more focused ideal in terms of the coloration and projection of the texts. Nancy Argenta is truly empathetic in ‘Jesu, deine Gnadenblicke’, luminously expounding on ‘future glory’. So, too, Michael Chance, who in Nos 11 and 43 demonstrates his capacity for delectable nuancing and a tonal security, less evident in more recent recordings.
Over and above Herreweghe, Gardiner gives the opening chorus of No 43, ‘God is gone up with a shout’, the festive fireworks implied by the fugal subject, and set up so effectively in the extraordinary contrast with the dreamy, unassuming introduction. This is a virtuoso showpiece in which the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir truly shine. The same can be said for the fiendish trumpet aria which follows: a brilliant performance in which the names of the instrumentalists are scandalously omitted. The recently recorded chorale cantata Auf Christi Himmelfahrt (No 128) has a markedly different sound, brighter and lither in some ways, but a rather less robust choral presence. For all the buoyancy of the initial chorus, I miss the inexorable rootedness which Leonhardt brings both to this and subsequent arias. The text is by Christianne Marianne von Ziegler, whose mystical imagery leads Bach to matchless elegance in the duet, ‘Sein Allmacht’, sung tenderly by Robin Blaze and Christoph Genz.
Throughout, one cannot deny the quality of executancy in these performances – and this Ascension music offers Gardiner all the thrilling opportunities he needs to give rein to his flair – but too often precision excludes a consistent identification with Bach’s essential heartbeat (no, not the rhythm but his grounded spiritual engagement – a paradox which stands firm with Bach! – which can’t be constructed like a jigsaw). For this reason, I admire this new release but return to Koopman for his amicable and unfussy No 37, and elsewhere to Herreweghe for spontaneity and breadth of expression.'