Composed in 1680, this group of seven tiny cantatas – each meditating on a part of Christ’s body (feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart and face) – represents an extreme in formal compression. Each cantata has just six movements: an instrumental introduction, a choral setting of the relevant Biblical citation, three short solo arias, and a repeat of the chorus. Few of those movements last more than 90 seconds, and some are a lot shorter. But the real catch is that the solo arias are all on texts attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux with 80- syllable trochaic lines: Buxtehude sets the vast majority of them to four-bar phrases, each with an almost inevitable paroxytone ending. This can lead to musical predictability, and the first task of musicians is to counteract the numbing regularity of those phrases.
They approach this by adopting a generally very smooth rhythmic style, benefitting much from the marvellous continuo group of Paul Nicholson (organ), Jane Coe (cello) and Elizabeth Kenny (theorbo): all three superbly resourceful in their range of colours and attacks, without ever interrupting the music’s flow. Above this the violins of David Woodstock and Walter Reiter glow or sparkle as the music requires. For the sixth cantata Buxtehude makes a welcome change in introducing a group of five viols, here nicely played by a group that more or less corresponds to the members of Fretwork.
In line with today’s best practice, the choruses are taken just by the five excellent solo singers, led by Carolyn Sampson in luscious form. They are superby balanced, singing with an Italianate pronunciation that projects the words well but may exacerbate the effect of all those trochaic lines in the poetry