Volume 17 is a double album release featuring cantatas for New Year’s Day and for the Sunday after New Year, recorded live in January 2000. 

Following the Christmas festivities and to usher in the new millennium, we join John Eliot within the grand neo-Gothic Gethsemanekirche in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin for a programme consisting of Bach’s four New Year’s Day cantatas. The simple idea of a progression from beginning to end to a new beginning, permeate these cantatas. In contrast to the modest BWV 143 Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele II that opens the programme, Bach begins BWV 41 Jesu, nun sei gepreiset with the fantastically grand opening chorus, Jesu, nun sei gepreiset. Gardiner affirms; ‘…it is the epic scope of Bach’s vision for this opening movement which takes one’s breath away.’ The jewel in this particular cantata is the tenor aria Wo ferne du den edlen Frieden (No.4), one of only nine cantata movements in which Bach uses the violoncello piccolo, an instrument used by Bach to symbolise the presence and person of Christ. 

Where Cantata 41 is expansive and majestic, BWV 16 Herr Gott, dich loben wir is concise and pithy, summed up in its opening chorus of just thirty-four bars. We then hear the last of the surviving New Year cantatas by Bach, BWV 171 Gott, wie dein Name, so ist auch dein Ruhm. This is a cantata of contrasts, ranging from the somewhat lethargic tenor aria in the second movement that conjures up a delightful image of ‘white strips of cloud trailing across the heavens’ to the magnificent closing chorale; Lass uns das Jahr vollbringen. It is the first Sunday after New Year and, as if accused of breaking our New Year’s resolution already, BWV 153 Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind, opens with a four-part chorale saying: ‘Behold, dear God, how my enemies with whom I must always battle, are so cunning and powerful that they can with ease subdue me.’ BWV 58 Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid II continues this theme of the beleaguered Christian. This is wonderfully illustrated through the use of the distressed, persecuted soul (soprano) in dialogue with a guardian angel, by implication, Christ (bass). 

The Monteverdi Choir accompanied by The English Baroque Soloists have once again created a captivating release, adding to the already impressive Bach Cantata pilgrimage series.