Listening to JS Bach Cantatas (Soloists, Monteverdi Players & Chorus, John Elliott Gardiner)

JS Bach is simply one of the ‚greats‘. Even his most intimate works – for example the works for solo keyboard – have a quiet grandeur and emotional impact that is not only unmatched by the majority of his Baroque colleagues but even by the generations of composers that followed. There is a clarity of form and an innate sense of musicality that often just leaves me speechless.

His cantatas must stand near the pinnacle  if not at the summit, of his musical œuvre. Bar the Passions they encapsulate all the things that make JS Bach a great and magnificent composer and a genius.

I have all twenty-odd CDs recorded by John Elliott Gardiner and his Monteverdi Soloists on their pilgrimage. It’s impressive, to say the least, that when Deutsche Gramophon cancelled their commitment to record all…