As joyful and awe-inspiring as John Eliot Gardiner’s commemorative Bach Cantata Pilgrimage surely was, it must also have been an arduous journey. The conductor’s own performance diary, from which this set’s exceptionally illuminating booklet note is derived, suggests as much. The three cantatas on the second disc were to be presented in Warsaw, for example, but ‘a last minute hitch with the Polish promoter’ sent the musicians to Warwick instead. And trouble with the Baroque organ in Altenburg, where the first disc was recorded, necessitated an unplanned intermission and ‘much banging and hammering’ before BWV146 could begin. Organist Silas Standage digs into the virtuoso solo part with gusto in this cantata’s prefatory sinfonia, but one wonders whether the breathlessly fast tempo and occasional rhythmic unsteadiness resulted from a surplus of adrenalin.
BR>Generally, in fact, this third instalment in the series is less consistently satisfying than its predecessors. Take the singers, for instance. Tenor Mark Padmore makes surprisingly heavy weather of the florid writing of ‘Sei getreu, alle Pein’ from BWV12, though the similarly demanding aria in BWV103 is negotiated with far greater aplomb, and his recitative in BWV146 is a model of dramatic acuity and concision. Bass Stephen Varcoe, always a musical singer, sounds strained in Warwick, and especially so after hearing Julian Clarkson, whose marvellously firm tone is a highlight of the Altenburg programme. William Tower’s colourless alto is not to my taste but he compensates by singing with fervour and is greatly preferable to Robin Tyson, whose hooty, heady tone suits his buffo aria in BWV166 but not much else.

Still, this is a long pilgrimage, and one in which such bumps along the road are to be expected. What makes Gardiner worth following is his understanding of the music. From his notes it’s clear that he sees these cantatas not just as musical marvels but as deeply felt religious allegories, which is likely how Bach himself saw them. And what emanates from this dual understanding is a wealth of imaginative detail: the expressive underlining of dissonances in the chorus ‘Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen’ (BWV12) with its halting tread; the joyful dance of ‘Wie will ich mich freuen’ (BWV146); the brooding deliberateness of ‘Ich will an den Himmel denken’ (BWV166). In truth, there’s more here to marvel at than to complain about, and so I impatiently await the next instalment.