As Sir John Eliot Gardiner notes in his accompanying journal from autumn 2000, the Monteverdi pilgrims were especially reluctant to leave behind the contemplative world of the previous Sunday’s Trinity cantatas (among them the supremely fine BWV8 and 95). The next immediate challenge consisted of works, performed at the Swedish church of Allhelgonakyrkan, Lund, of less universally elevated quality.

If “rating” Bach cantatas is a perilous business, BWV148, 114 or 47 undeniably fall outside the category where the incremental impact of the whole work can be said to transport the listener into another sphere altogether. Each, however, contains some exceptional movements, including ebullient choruses and one or two memorable arias. The opening salvoes of the thrusting BWV148 are less gripping than might have been the case given more time (the concertante trumpet also seems a touch recessed), but Gardiner manages to convey an exceptional logic in the restless rhetorical figures of “Ach, lieben Christen”‚ a piece which plays fascinatingly on the contradictions of divine encouragement and admonishment.

This cantata also includes the aria “Wo wird in diesem Jammertale”, a model of the extended soul-searching tableau in which, here, the singer and obbligato flute are co-subsumed within a vale of sorrow. It is beguilingly delivered by tenor Mark Padmore and flautist Rachel Beckett, the highlight of the Swedish programme, alongside a delightfully measured performance of the motet Der Geist hilft.

The introduction of young solo singers brings many fresh nuances to the 17th Trinity Sunday works, though the experienced team for the 18th Sunday from St Thomas’s, Leipzig, provides rather more consistent and embedded readings. One of Bach’s most incandescent and gracious choruses, “Herr Christ, der ein’ge Gottessohn” compels Gardiner to draw richly on the irradiating tonal and textural contrasts of lyrical choral writing under the stellar filigree of a sopranino recorder.

The resolute confidence of Gotthold Schwarz’s characterful singing in this work prepares us for an electrifying account of the Sinfonia of BWV169 (Howard Moody’s obbligato organ playing a lesson in unfussy finesse), which itself heralds Bach’s least celebrated but, arguably, most refined and mature alto cantata. Nathalie Stutzmann sails through each portion with her inimitable diction and plush allure. The centrepiece is, of course, Bach’s brilliant reworking of the Siciliano from the Concerto, BWV1053, and Gardiner takes this briskly enough for Stutzmann to shape the extensive embellishments within an especially elegant phraseology. Another remarkable stage.