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(More customer reviews)As most music-lovers know, John Eliot Gardiner gave himself the remarkable task of performing and recording all of Bach's sacred choral/orchestral works in one year, going from church to cathedral to kirk throughout Europe. Not only that, he and the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists did the entire church calendar of cantatas on the Sundays for which they were intended. And, when the original recording company pulled out of the project, he arranged to bring out all the cantatas on his own label. Those CDs have just started being released. Some (perhaps all - I'm frankly not sure) of the performances were also filmed for release on DVD. The very first performance, done late in 1999, was this one of the Christmas Oratorio (Weinachtsoratorium) at the Herderkirche in Weimar, where Bach lived early in his career. The oratorio is a collection of six cantatas; it is not clear whether he intended them to be performed all together, or on each of six feast days between Christmas and Epiphany. Be that as it may, this performance of all six took place before a gala audience and this DVD, beautifully filmed and recorded, is a record of that event. The soloists are American soprano Claron McFadden, the glorious alto Bernarda Fink, the young tenor Christoph Genz as the Evangelist, and bass Dietrich Henschel who seems to be singing everywhere these days (I just reviewed a DVD of Strauss's 'Capriccio' in which he performed the Count).
Not enough good can be said of the performances of the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, Gardiner's musical colleagues of over twenty years. I was particularly struck by the sensation playing of the woodwind players (baroque instruments, of course) and the valveless trumpets. Unfortunately these players were not named in the enclosed booklet, even though they were stars in much the same league as the singers. And the Choir is, of course, one of the very best currently before the public. Just to hear the chorales that dot the Oratorio is to be blissed out by their beauty as done by the Monteverdi Choir.
The singers are all marvelous, although soprano McFadden's beautiful lyrical soprano sometimes is drowned out occasionally either by the orchestra or, as in the duet with Henschel (in Cantata III, 'Herr, dein Mitleid'), by other singers. Genz, as the Evangelist, is a young earnest narrator with a flexible light tenor. He is marvelous in his arias in IV, 'Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben' and VI, 'Nun mögt ihr stolzen Feinde schrecken.' Henschel has a flexible bass with plenty of metal; he is a marvelous actor as well. His aria from I, 'Grosser Herr,' is very effective. But the undoubted star - and a good thing, considering how important the alto solos are - is the remarkable Bernarda Fink. She not only has a velvety contralto but she is a deeply involved singer who manages to convey meaning by means of phrasing and inflection. She is outstanding in I, 'Bereite dich, Zion'; II, 'Schlafe, mein Liebster'; III, 'Schliesse, mein Herz.'
I understand there is a release this year, also, of an older performance of the Christmas Oratorio led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt with Concentus Musicus. I have not seen it, but I believe it is from twenty years or so ago.
This 2CD set also includes two short documentaries, interviews with Gardiner: "'Jauchzet Frohleckt' - John Eliot Gardiner's Cantata Pilgrimage" and "Bach Revisited: J.E. Gardiner in Saxony and Thuringia." Sound is in PCM Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. Subtitles in German, French, English, Japanese. Region Code: 0.
I cannot recommend this release highly enough.
Scott Morrison
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