Barker Review Bach Cantatas
Posted by Terence on May 21, 2024, 7:39 pm
Edited by board administrator May 21, 2024, 7:49 pm
I should think I'm the market for a Bach Cantatas series, but no. I have Gardiner, Leusink, Harnoncourt, Suzuki. I'm not going to buy another set. What I WOULD buy is a another set with say, the Thomanerchor or Windsbacher choirs, with boys and/or male altos doing the solos. First, because these choirs are the choirs in type that Bach wrote for. Call me crazy, but there's a rightness of the music with these forces. Had Bach a ful-voiced mixed, 21st-century choir, he would have written different music. And this one-voice per part nonsense. What did the Thomanerchor boys do in the choir loft? Mime? Educated to sing at great expense, and then be mute? This one-voice per part is partly the product of professional choirs who want to control a revenue stream, like Gardiner et al. who have made a lot of money they wouldn't have had they used, say, a cathedral choir. I don't know the answer to these historical questions, but I am a historian, and whatever the answer to perfornmance questions, what I DO know is that a 21st-century soprano and female alto, and 1VPP is not IT.
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