Classic CD review: Johann Sebastian Bach, 53 Cantatas (BIS)

CD cover: Bach Cantatas.

If one were to compile a list of the seven musical wonders of the world, then Bach's Cantatas might head it.

Just over 200 surviving works range from scores for solo voice with varying accompaniments to such monumental creations as the well-known Ein Feste Burg and Wachet Auf.

These are High Baroque at its grandest, calling for vocal soloists, choir and orchestra, both taking their title from the chorale tune that seeds the music.

It may be difficult to believe in our self-serving, aggrandising times, that many of these masterpieces were written with the humblest intentions, to be sung on a weekly basis in Leipzig's Thomaskirche.

Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan, who headlined last year's New Zealand Arts Festival, have recorded all the religious cantatas and now these classic renditions are being reissued in boxed sets. The latest offers 53 works on 15 discs with full documentation.

The late English composer John Tavener claimed he listened to one Bach cantata a day and this could be the perfect approach to tackle what might seem like an overwhelming embarrassment of wonders.

Why not start with Wir danken dir Gott? Its opening Sinfonia is as brilliant as the launch of Bach's celebrated Magnificat.

You will thrill to Suzuki driving his organ obbligato (familiar from the composer's E major Violin Partita) through a blaze of trumpets and oboes.

Arias are sung by Gerd Turk, Peter Kooij, Hana Blazikova and Robin Blaze. Tenor Turk combines artistry and fortitude in a fearsomely florid Hallelujah that dispenses joy for almost six minutes. Chorus work, as always, displays the clarity and precision of Suzuki's Japanese singers.

Sample also the solo cantata, Ich hab genug. This features the superb Carolyn Sampson in arias that some may know as bass showpieces. The lilting beauty of her very first offering makes a strong argument for a soprano takeover. American poet Edna St Vincent Millay once praised Bach's music as so pure, relentless and incorruptible that it was like a principle of geometry. These recordings catch all this, as well as illuminating its passion, vibrancy and humanism.

Verdict: Musical wonders to be enjoyed on a daily basis.