Reviews

THE GUARDIAN

Bach Advent Cantatas, Cadogan Hall, London (20 Dec 2006)

Cadogan Hall, SW1

Bach's cantatas have been a staple for John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir since they undertook their Bach pilgrimage across Europe and the US to celebrate the new millennium. On that musical journey, they performed each cantata at the time in the liturgical calendar for which it was written, so it was no surprise that the four cantatas in their programme at Cadogan Hall were all originally intended for performance during advent.

Two of the quartet are among Bach's best known cantatas: chorale in Cantata 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, is familiar to the English-speaking world in multiple arrangements as Sheep May Safely Graze, while the melody that dominates Cantata 140, Wachet Auf, Ruft uns die Stimme, is inescapably embedded in our Christmas music. But Gardiner's performances showed the powerful, formal originality of both works. The three verses of the chorale in Wachet Auf are separated by a pair of duet arias of tender intimacy, while the grander scheme of Herz und Mund contains numbers for all four soloists, each with an instrumental obbligato, that almost make up a catalogue of different aria types.

Most striking of all, though, was Cantata 70, Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachtet!, setting off with a dramatic urgency that never falters, and creating an almost operatic intensity at times. Gardiner predictably brought out all that theatricality. Yet, despite the energy with which he injected each of the performances, there was something a bit routine about much of the singing; even some sparkling obbligatos from the members of the English Baroque Soloists never quite dispelled the feeling that this was just another programme of cantatas like so many these musicians had given over the last six years.

Andrew Clements

music.guardian.co.uk/classical/livereviews/story/0,,1975677,00.html