In the booklet, Bo Holten and interviewer Mark Wiggins discuss the performance practice options open to modern performers in a detailed and open-minded way. Holten’s approach, similar to that of René Jacobs, is to use a chamber choir of 24 singers, accompanied by only an organ and violone, but with some passages thinned down to a quartet of solo voices. Holten argues that three or more singers per part in double choruses ensure a more unrestrained clarity and a wider dynamic scope than single voices can achieve. Others may prefer their historically informed Bach motets to feature instrumental doubling and/or single voices throughout; ample musical satisfaction for those of such inclination may be found in fine recordings by Cantus Cölln (DHM, 12/97) and, most recently, Trinity Baroque (Raumklang, 5/08). For those wanting a general “choral” approach, the Flemish Radio Choir does an excellent job, although so does the Netherlands Chamber Choir under Peter Dijkstra on another recent disc (Channel Classics, 8/08). The Flemish choir’s warm sound masks some occasional tuning problems in Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied that would be cruelly exposed in one-per-part performances, but their interpretation of the text and shaping of phrases is emotionally telling. For example, the “die Kraft verschwind’t je mehr und mehr” section of Komm, Jesu, komm is communicative and strongly sentimental. Holten’s well pointed articulation of polyphonic music (in the florid opening of Der geist hilft unser schwachheit auf) and the diction of his singers is immaculate. It is enjoyable to hear a disciplined performance of Jesu, meine Freude that is devoid of over-familiar routine. Holten also includes Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn (BWVAnh159). Perhaps composed during Bach’s period at Weimar, it has often been misattributed to Bach’s elder second cousin Johann Christoph Bach. It is good to hear a solemn and beautiful performance of it alongside the usual six suspects.