If not strictly chronological, Vol. 6 represents the next logical stage in Ton Koopman’s exhaustive series of Bach’s complete cantatas. Having recorded the early works from Arnstadt, Muhlhausen and Weimar (as well as Nos. 22 and 23 with which Bach auditioned for the post of Cantor at Leipzig) and all the secular cantatas, Koopman is now engaged on the great Leipzig period from 1723; in the following years, Bach composed five cycles of masterpieces around the events and themes of the church calendar, of which around three-fifths of the music survives. Bach set about the task of reorientating himself as a church composer, from the court at Cothen, with unparalleled vigour and energy in many of the works from the first annual cantata cycle.
His inaugural offering was a pair of substantial bipartite cantatas, Nos. 75 and 76, performed on consecutive Sundays in the early summer of 1723 (Forkel reports that Bach was inducted into his office at 9am on the Monday morning after the first). Koopman gives us the second one initially, Die Himmel erzahlen die Ehre Gottes, in a muscular and assertive performance. The fine opening chorus, with its swaggering trumpet obbligato, is zestfully negotiated and appropriately full-blooded, as the text encourages with its reference to the Lord’s “mighty handiwork”. The same commitment and character are plentiful in the equivalent and formidably worked-out contrapuntal edifice of No. 75 – a movement passionately declaiming the rewards of seeking God – and the wonderfully evocative imagery in No. 104, Du Hirte Israel, hore, a work Fritz Werner memorably recorded. Memorable for different reasons is Singet dem Herrn, No. 190, a cantata whose opening two movements require major reconstruction. Koopman has completed the task with a dynamic scoring around the existing vocal parts. If a somewhat over-elaborate setting, it is nevertheless thrilling, and employs the sort of fervent Reformation-like unisons and belting brass which cannot fail to stir.
Given the inconsistent solo vocal offerings of early volumes, it is especially satisfying that Koopman appears to have found in Ruth Ziesak a soprano who can get round the notes, sing consistently in tune (despite one under-par aria in No. 186) and express the meaning of the music with some sort of rhetorical personality. Her reflective and sonorous line is most effectively conveyed in “Liebster Gott” from No. 179; and she fairly dances around the lithe “Ich nehme mein Leiden” from No. 75. This latter cantata really is a work of extraordinary stature, abounding in arresting arias, none more so than the delicious “Mein Jesus soll”, a creation of such ingenious and agreeable melodic inflexion that Paul Agnew can but relish it devotedly. Both Agnew’s and Klaus Mertens’s singing throughout is a joy, a happy blend of technical security, musicianly shaping and tonal elegance. Agnew, especially, has the means of projecting the emotional intensity of the music in the best traditions of Helmut Krebs and Ernst Haefliger. Elisabeth von Magnus retains her place as the contralto, though she is, in truth, the weak link. Her contribution to the stirring Part 2 of No. 76 is not especially undistinguished but her languid sound is repeatedly enervating, and too often the pitch dips unacceptably.
In all other respects this is quite a turn-up for the books after the hits and misses of previous volumes. Bach was clearly intent on impressing his new employers with the most accomplished work he could produce; one only has to hear the richness of these scores (a bonanza here for those who like trumpets, and brilliantly played too) to suppose that Koopman has found similar inspiration at exactly the right time. I await the next volume of the Leipzig cantatas with renewed anticipation. A fine achievement indeed.'