Bach: Sacred Cantatas, Volume 15
Bach Collegium Japan / Masaaki Suzuki
BIS CD-1111
The Japanese are teaching us how to listen to Bach again—and isn’t that curious? Masaaki Suzuki’s fifteenth installment in his traversal of the sacred cantatas gathers four works from late 1723, those first febrile months in Leipzig when Bach was still proving himself, still establishing his credentials as Thomaskantor. The music crackles with that peculiar intensity of a composer who knows exactly what he’s doing but hasn’t yet settled into comfortable routine.
Suzuki’s forces remain refreshingly modest. Twelve singers, three to a part—the kind of ensemble Bach himself might have dreamed of having, though he rarely did. The sonic profile this creates isn’t revolutionary, exactly, but it does restore a transparency that decades of Romantic inflation obscured. When Peter Kooij launches into “Höllische Schlange” from BWV 40, you hear everything: the sinuous bass line, the string articulation, that marvelous darkness in Kooij’s lower register that suggests genuine menace without resorting to bluster.
And Kooij is simply splendid throughout. His voice possesses an evenness of production—a fluidity, really—that eludes most basses who tackle this repertoire. Listen to “So löschet im Eifer der rächende Richter” from BWV 70, where he navigates the obbligato trombone writing with an ease that makes you forget how fiendishly difficult the tessitura is. The trombone itself (played with admirable restraint) doesn’t overwhelm, doesn’t turn the aria into some sort of apocalyptic showpiece. It’s joyous, yes, but the joy feels earned rather than imposed.
Robin Blaze continues to show why he’s become indispensable in this music. His countertenor has that peculiar quality of sounding both ethereal and grounded—no easy feat. In the opening aria of BWV 60, “O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort,” Suzuki’s balance between instruments and voice is nearly ideal. You can trace the melodic line through the texture without strain, yet nothing feels undernourished. The horn, that notoriously treacherous instrument in Bach’s hands, emerges with surprising security.
Gerd Türk, a veteran of countless Bach recordings, brings his characteristic intelligence to the tenor solos. His voice has perhaps lost some of its youthful bloom—there’s a slight edge now in the upper register—but his musicianship compensates. He understands the rhetoric of these texts, knows when to press forward and when to let a phrase breathe. Yukari Nonoshita gets less to do here (only one solo in BWV 70), but her contribution is vocally secure and stylistically apt, if perhaps a touch careful.
The chorus impresses most in those moments of contrapuntal density where larger forces tend to muddy. The opening chorus of BWV 70, “Wachet! betet! betet! wachet!”, emerges with thrilling clarity—each entry audible, each line traceable. Suzuki doesn’t rush, doesn’t push for false excitement. The tempos feel considered rather than conventional, shaped by the text rather than some abstract notion of Baroque practice.
BWV 90, “Es reißet euch ein schrecklich Ende,” receives perhaps the most compelling reading on the disc. It’s a grim work, full of divine wrath and eschatological terror, and Suzuki doesn’t soften its edges. The instrumental writing—those stabbing strings, that relentless rhythmic drive—comes through with appropriate ferocity. Yet even here, the transparency serves the music. You hear Bach thinking, hear him constructing his theological arguments through purely musical means.
The album itself, made in Kobe Shoin Women’s University, captures this transparency beautifully. There’s air around the instruments, a sense of acoustic space that never turns clinical. BIS has served Suzuki well throughout this project, and this volume maintains their high standard.
One could quibble. The vibrato is perhaps a shade more present than strict historically informed practice would dictate. Some might prefer even smaller forces, even more astringency. And there are moments—rare ones—where the ensemble’s unanimity feels almost too perfect, where a bit of productive friction might have generated more energy.
But these are minor reservations about a major achievement. Suzuki’s Bach isn’t the last word—there can be no last word—but it represents a remarkably consistent, intelligent, and musically satisfying approach to this inexhaustible repertoire. Volume fifteen maintains the high standards established in earlier releases, offering performances that illuminate without distorting, that respect tradition without being enslaved by it. This is Bach-playing of real distinction, and anyone following this series will want to hear it.
