This luxuriantly packaged first volume of a new series, ‘Bach Contextual’, appears as something of a hybrid: a CD with a book generously offering a broad purview of the composer’s world before extensive artist biographies. Beyond the eccentric English translation from the original Dutch, a curious mix of didactic commentary and performance dogma appears to define Musica Amphion’s raison d’être. The one-to-a-part for Bach’s choir is presented as an ‘open and closed case’, while the claim of presenting these two cantatas, a motet and a prelude and fugue in some kind of liturgical-musical context could not be looser.

Recording in the beautiful church at Arnstadt (where Bach’s professional career began) is where context matters: musicians are assembled in the organ loft similar to those in the atmospheric Christophe Coin recordings at Ponitz, down the road, for Astrée. Cheek-by-jowl intimacy encourages a common purpose in such circumstances, especially in the close-knit textural voicing in the chorale movements which pervade Jesu, meine Freude and Cantata No 64, and it’s in the corporate movements where expressive possibility takes over from dutiful Baroque reflex.

While one-to-a-part is often a highly effective vehicle for Bach’s vocal music, the success rate on record is disappointingly low, especially given the opportunity to mic-up and balance singers with instruments. The Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam benefits from a generous acoustic (perhaps just a little too generous) offering attractive luminosity in the motet-style opening of BWV64 with its colla parte instruments and yet the bathroom acoustic flatters few of the solo contributions in the cantatas. The notable exception lies fairly and squarely with the evergreen Charles Daniels in the stunning ‘shipwreck scena’ from BWV81, ‘Die schäumenden Wellen’.

Jesu, meine Freude suffers from a degree of colourless and stretched soprano singing, quite at odds with some beautifully refined lower-voice work. This is, alas, not especially satisfying. The elegant and incisive organ-playing of Vincent van Laar in the framing E minor Prelude and Fugue is where the greatest rewards lie.