Heart's Solace - Funeral Motets & Cantatas by Bach
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Johann Sebastian Bach
Label: Classical
Magazine Review Date: 9/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 66
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: SK60155
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Cantata No. 198, 'Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Andrew Parrott, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Taverner Consort Taverner Players |
| (6) Motets, Movement: Jesu, meine Freude, BWV227 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Andrew Parrott, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Taverner Consort Taverner Players |
| (6) Motets, Movement: Komm, Jesu, komm!, BWV229 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Andrew Parrott, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Taverner Consort Taverner Players |
Author: Jonathan Freeman-Attwood
There are few choral works of Bach’s so delicately woven and deliciously pearly as Lass, Furstin (Trauer Ode – or “Mourning Ode” – as it is better known), a piece from 1727 which magically juxtaposes funeral symbolism rooted in the past with thoroughly modern eighteenth-century tastes. Andrew Parrott frames this exceptional eulogy, for the beloved Electress of Saxony and Queen of Poland, Christiane Eberhardine, with two motets in a programme entitled “Heart’s Solace” (more the marketing man’s solace, I’d say). The performance of the central work, the only piece with obbligato instruments, is reverently shaped, and as so often with Parrott, articulation is carefully judged and mindfully directed; long-breathed and dignified, the Taverner Consort and Players revel in the opening movement’s courtly refinement and Bach’s brilliant manipulation of Franco-influenced rhythmic gesture. The instrumental playing – the ‘soft’ scoring of woodwind, lutes and gambas has a uniquely visceral palette – is the closest since Jurgen Jurgens’s mid-1960s recording to capturing the paradoxical state of heartfelt pain and a shimmering spiritual nourishment.
Herreweghe, Leonhardt (on a two-disc set) and Koopman (three CDs) each bring their own fragrance, especially in the solo movements, though each is moderately undermined by inconsistency in their respective vocal contributions. The question becomes more marked for Parrott, who believes that Bach’s aria singers (the so-called concertists) also performed singly in the ‘large’ choral movements: singers normally heard in solos or duets thereby become ever-present in the overall vocal timbre. This is where, on purely interpretative grounds, problems arise in the one-to-a-part situation if there are colouristic limitations to individual voices which, in a larger consort or chorus, would be assimilated by the mass. Conversely, singers better suited to consort work are forced to perform some of the hardest solo vocal repertoire ever written. Whatever the evidence for Bach’s time, one should argue that pragmatic considerations to find the best solution for today’s listener are paramount. This is certainly not an issue with Charles Daniels, whose “Der Ewigkeit” is especially sympathetic and beautifully sung, but mainly with the sopranos (Sony don’t state who sings which solo) where there are a number of glitches – often ‘scooped’, slightly flat notes. The solos here are never less than efficiently executed but not all these voices have the tonal or emotional range to project Bach’s more profound utterances. That said, Parrott’s singers and his discreetly accompanying players demonstrate what an intimate group can achieve in the motetJesu, meine Freude; it is performed with both elegance and an acute involvement in the musical and rhetorical dialogue, enabled but not caused by the size of the group.
This is where Eric Van Tassel’s assertion in the booklet-note that the single approach is “taking hold among scholars and performers” sits uneasily; silence in many distinguished quarters is less one of subjugation at the feet of this long-running theory than a refusal to let the matter exude an importance beyond its station. “Taking hold” has the whiff of the zealot demanding we pay tribute to an irreducible perspective, one which seems seriously at odds with the restless and changeable aesthetic of the baroque. In terms of more lasting musical relevance, Parrott presents a convincing and polished programme, especially in the logic of his extended lines and the outstanding instrumental playing throughout.'
Herreweghe, Leonhardt (on a two-disc set) and Koopman (three CDs) each bring their own fragrance, especially in the solo movements, though each is moderately undermined by inconsistency in their respective vocal contributions. The question becomes more marked for Parrott, who believes that Bach’s aria singers (the so-called concertists) also performed singly in the ‘large’ choral movements: singers normally heard in solos or duets thereby become ever-present in the overall vocal timbre. This is where, on purely interpretative grounds, problems arise in the one-to-a-part situation if there are colouristic limitations to individual voices which, in a larger consort or chorus, would be assimilated by the mass. Conversely, singers better suited to consort work are forced to perform some of the hardest solo vocal repertoire ever written. Whatever the evidence for Bach’s time, one should argue that pragmatic considerations to find the best solution for today’s listener are paramount. This is certainly not an issue with Charles Daniels, whose “Der Ewigkeit” is especially sympathetic and beautifully sung, but mainly with the sopranos (Sony don’t state who sings which solo) where there are a number of glitches – often ‘scooped’, slightly flat notes. The solos here are never less than efficiently executed but not all these voices have the tonal or emotional range to project Bach’s more profound utterances. That said, Parrott’s singers and his discreetly accompanying players demonstrate what an intimate group can achieve in the motet
This is where Eric Van Tassel’s assertion in the booklet-note that the single approach is “taking hold among scholars and performers” sits uneasily; silence in many distinguished quarters is less one of subjugation at the feet of this long-running theory than a refusal to let the matter exude an importance beyond its station. “Taking hold” has the whiff of the zealot demanding we pay tribute to an irreducible perspective, one which seems seriously at odds with the restless and changeable aesthetic of the baroque. In terms of more lasting musical relevance, Parrott presents a convincing and polished programme, especially in the logic of his extended lines and the outstanding instrumental playing throughout.'
Heart's Solace - Funeral Motets & Cantatas by Bach
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