If Bach had heard Thomas Quasthoff he might have considered making his Evangelist a baritone. Such is the telling presence of his interpretations here that one often feels subsumed by the singularly heavy-hearted ‘station’ of the cross in Ich will den Kreuzstab (‘I gladly carry the cross’) or metaphorically transported to the promised land both here and, by a more gentle route, in both Ich habe genug and the aria and chorale which constitutes the body of Der Friede.

Just as Fischer-Dieskau brought a pioneering and searing intensity to Cantatas Nos 56 and 82 in 1951 for Karl Ristenpart, as indeed does Barry McDaniel for Fritz Werner (see page 91), Quasthoff renders these cantatas as deeply personal statements. Kreuzstab contains one of the most disarmingly emotional outbursts in Bachian literature, one that resonates with Passion-like inflections in a tantalising search for salvation. The soloist is impressively joined by the Berlin Baroque Soloists whose rich palette (as the most red-blooded of modern-instrument bands with a ‘period’ conscience) and chamber music sensibilities make for an absorbing experience.

So, too, Ich habe genug, which finds in Quasthoff a supreme advocate for its supplicatory undertones and autumnal colour, irradiated by the spontaneous fluency of Albrecht Meyer’s exquisite obbligato oboe. There are occasional moments of vocal idiosyncrasy, intonation dips and the odd rough edge in the strings, but this is Bach performance brimming with vitality, meaning and risk.

I praised the sophisticated lyricism of Matthias Goerne but this has the edge for the emotional investment evinced in Quasthoff’s extraordinary diction and the depths it plumbs. Surround sound provides yet a further fathom of emotional involvement.