The two ongoing major series of Bach cantatas remind us that there is still much room for new, personal approaches to unlocking the door to these often seemingly arcane creations. Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh’ darein (BWV2) is such an example – opening with an austere stilo antico essay to suit Luther’s didactic hymn of human remorse that “faith has died out among all mankind”. Such gloom has traditionally resulted in performances of linear obfuscation. Not so in the next of Sigiswald Kuijken’s discriminating series.

Kuijken and his close-knit single-voice forces inhabit the emotional core of this work in the subsequent arias. If not as vocally polished as Philippe Herreweghe (Harmonia Mundi, 9/03), the soloists bring a grainy honesty, an unselfconscious eloquence and luminosity to the heart of this doctrinal work. O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, another chorale cantata from 1724 (such a contrast from the introverted BWV2 a week later), lacks the grandeur of a larger troupe in the French ouverture opening, certainly in the Gardiner Pilgrimage mould, but the voices are rarely forced and the subsequent fugue delights in its heady syncopations here, and the lively exchanges in Meine Seele erhebt (BWV10).

While trying not to single out a soloist in such a manifestly corporate experience, Christophe Genz colours “O Ewigkeit” – a significant bipartite work – with an especially assured projection of text (as indeed does the fine Jan van der Crabben in “Gewaltige” from BWV10), each aria illuminated by the resonating commentary of the outstanding instrumentalists of La Petite Bande.

Meanwhile, Masaaki Suzuki’s no less thoughtful complete series reaches the final straight with the second volume of solo cantatas (after Vol 38). Peter Kooij, alas, is not the force he was: his Kreuzstab is vocally uneven, without the reserves to make this harrowing journey “speak” as it can – and does in the extraordinary hands of Barry McDaniel for Fritz Werner (Erato, 1/05). He fares rather better in Der Friede sei mit dir (BWV158) and conveys a wonderful naturalness to the recitatives.

Carolyn Sampson is radiant in her two cantatas. Ich habe genug rarely seems to me as incrementally effective in E minor as in the earlier bass version but Sampson brings a resigned pathos as persuasive as anything you’ll hear. Despite a pedestrian instrumental accompaniment in the opening aria, “Schlummert ein” offers a delicate blend of flute and strings to underpin a beautifully judged innocence of expression, reaching its apogee in an exquisite pianissimo da capo. A highpoint in a mixed bag.