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GRAMOPHONE (Awards Issue /2013)
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Reviewer: Jonathan
Freeman‑Attwood
More one-per-part cantatas
from Kuijken’s Petite Bande
In his selective series of cantatas (one for each Sunday and High Feast),
Sigiswald Kuijken visits the lively world of Pentecost in three of the four
works here. Often, in the previous 15 volumes, the intimate single-voiced La
Petite Bande has conjured some extraordinarily perceptive and internalised
visions of the more reflective, usually doleful musical texts.
The same is certainly true in the pastoral, mini-‘scena’ alto aria of O ewiges Feuer – usually more memorable for the sparks of the framing trumpet-led chorus – and the chamber exchanges from the short vivace of No 173 to the segueing duets, whose courtly elegance reminds one of how brilliantly Bach transformed secular models, often to even more devastating liturgical effect. Most striking is the effortless refitting of congratulatory conceits for Prince Leopold towards a taut setting of ‘God so loved the world’.
As before in this series, the distilled nobility of the musicianship is heard to greatest effect in the beautifully turned instrumental contributions; the refined textures of joined strings and winds is often breathtakingly sympathetic – and in a world of increasingly homogeneous Baroque ensembles, the playing in the duet ‘Gesegnete Christen’ from No 184 is profoundly affecting.
For all the distinctive character evident in Kuijken’s canvases (and some ringing musical arguments for where large one-to-a-part Bach does work), one cannot avoid referring to the prime Achilles heel here: solo voices inconsistently able to realise Bach’s arias with the necessary emotional or technical equipment. The Trinity cantata (No 129), which closes the disc, fares rather better, especially with Gerlinde Sämann’s deft hovering above Bach’s exquisite whirling melismas for the ubiquitous Holy Spirit. So spot-on and yet so far.
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