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.
