A double album featuring cantatas for the second and third Sunday before Lent, recorded live in February 2000. 

The Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner, perform in Naarden, Holland for a performance of Bach’s cantatas for Septuagesima. The programme opens with Bach’s first Leipzig cycle, BWV 144 Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin - a cantata encapsulated by the moral drawn by Bach’s librettist from the Gospel for the day: accept and be satisfied with your lot, however unfair it may seem at the time. Following the magnificent bold and uncompromising opening, the moral of the cantata is beautifully portrayed in Murre nicht, lieber Christ - an aria set as a minuet for alto over a pulsating string accompaniment to represent the mutterings of dissatisfied Christians. In contrast, the engaging five-movement work for solo soprano, oboe and strings, BWV 84 Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke, has no mention of the disgruntled work-force, but only of being ‘content with my good fortune that dear God bestows on me.’ Gardiner stresses this sentiment by making the choir sing the final chorale Ich leb indes in dir vergnüget (‘I live meanwhile content in thee’) a cappella and quietly. ‘I found it very affecting’, writes Gardiner. The programme ends with the third of Bach’s surviving cantatas for this Sunday, BWV 92 Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn. Unlike the previous two cantatas, the text does not relate specifically to either of the appointed Bible readings, but asks the congregation to surrender to God’s heart and mind and to trust in Him through good and ill. 

We then head to Southwell Minster for Bach’s cantatas for Sexagesima, three of his most original and startlingly different pre-Lenten cantatas. Each of these cantatas is characterised by Bach’s vivid pictorial imagination, an arresting sense of drama, and by music of freshness and power that lodges in the memory. The first two focus upon the Gospel theme of the day - (the parable of the sower (Luke 8: 4-15) - superbly exemplified in BWV 18 Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt where Bach adds two extra viola parts to the score. The magically dark-hued sonority four violas bring stresses the overwhelming power of the Word and forms ‘an ideal seed-bed in which God’s word may germinate and prosper.’ Equally vivid and brilliant is BWV 181 Leichtgesinnte Flattergeister where, in contrast to BWV 18, Bach focuses upon those superficial, fickle people who devour the seed that ‘fell by the wayside’. 

We end with BWV 126 Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort, a cantata that places emphasis upon the wonder and majesty of God’s Word. ‘Erhalt uns, Herr’ (‘Uphold us, Lord’) exalt the trumpet and voices in the opening chorus, reminding the congregation that ‘God’s throne cannot be budged’.