The Bach Guild would seem to have drawn its early initiative from the Archiv Division of DG which had been established in the 1940s. The repertory was placed within prescribed periods of music history, then divided and subdivided in categories. Thus the three mid-price discs I am dealing with here belong to Period V: The Baroque (late), Category F: J. S. Bach, Subcategory 6: The Cantata (sacred). All this is of less relevance now than when, during the 1950s such recordings were among the very few to be making an organized and sustained survey of early, renaissance and baroque music on disc.
The Magnificat and six cantatas contained on these discs were recorded in Vienna during the 1950s and, collectively, provide a fair picture of an approach to Bach's cantatas by Felix Prohaska and his mainly Viennese forces. Prohaska, together with Jonathan Sternberg and a young Michael Gielen recorded some 25 Bach cantatas all told of which the present performances are a mainly well-chosen selection. The weakest disc is that containing the Magnificat, the cantata Wachet! betet! and the eight-part chorus ''Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft'' which is all that has survived of No. 50. Part of the problem lies in the disc's digital remastering which has gone badly and disconcertingly awry in the ''Et misericordia'' (track 6) and, to a lesser extent in each of the two soprano arias. The Cantata Wachet! Betet! is a mixed success for, while the opening chorus is beautifully sung and sensitively handled by Prohaska, who has a marvellous feeling for phrasing and punctuation, the performance is seriously compromised elsewhere by weak contributions from the tenor Hugo Meyer-Welfing and the bass Norman Foster. Nevertheless, I should want this disc for Prohaska's overview of the work, for the appealing voice of the soprano Anny Felbermayer, and for the tenor Anton Dermota's fine declamation of the ''Deposuit potentes'' of the Magnificat.
The disc containing the cantatas Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme! (No. 140) and Christ lag in Todesbanden (No. 4) is thankfully spared the technical shortcomings of the other and the performances are more consistently effective. But I must state a preference for the Viennese State Opera Choir as against the rougher Vienna State Chamber Choir to which Wachet auf and Christ lag are entrusted. The chief strengths of these performances lie in Prohaska's feeling for line but additionally in the deeply affective singing of Laurence Dutoit, Kurt Equiluz—this must have been one of his very first Bach cantata recordings—and Hans Braun. Readers, by the way should not for a second imagine that these are old-fashioned sluggish performances. They are not; Prohaska takes both of the famous duets from No. 140 at a brisker pace than Nikolaus Harnoncourt, for instance, and, for the stirring opening chorus both directors adopt a similar pulse.
It is the third in this clutch of reissues, though which effortlessly earns itself a place of distinction in the recorded heritage of Bach's sacred cantatas. I would even go further and say that Prohaska's performance of Jesu der du meine Seele (No. 78) remains to this day unrivalled for its cohesive overall concept and for the great distinction of its soloists. This is a very fine performance indeed and one which no lover of Bach's music should be without. In the intervening years since 1954, when this record was made, we have changed our ideas about many aspects of performance style, unlike No. 78 the other piece here, the Actus Tragicus (No. 106) falters a little from Prohaska's view that, since it is funeral music it must therefore be slow. The choral passages suffer accordingly though the intimately scored and profoundly touching Sonatina is tenderly executed with an evident concern for historical veracity. Indeed, this recording may well have been among the very first to have used recorders and gambas as Bach required. Recordings of this calibre require no apologia in the wake of 'authenticity' and are a firm reminder that there was life in Bach performance before Karl Richter or Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Patchy, they may be but the finest things here shine out with a radiancy and a sensibility that deserves our approbation. Among be found in No. 78 I must mention above all, Anton Dermota's affecting account of tie supplicatory tenor recitative with its confident aria ''Dein Blut, so meine Schuld durchstreit'', limpidly accompanied by Hans Reznicek (flute), the lyrical and almost perfectly balanced partnership of Stich-Randall and Hermann in the duet ''Wir eilen mit schwachen'', supported by a lively continuo reahzation by Anton Heiller (organ), and the accompagnato ''Die Wunden, Nagel, Kron und Grab'' finely sustained by Braun. And the noble, elegiac sweep with which Prohaska imbues the opening chorus is on a par with all that follows.
In short, two interesting, sometimes illuminating reissues and one great one. I hope there are more to come since, apart from anything else, these are precious documents of singing, as well as fascinating staging-posts by which we can chart changing attitudes and tastes in performance.'