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Uri Golomb wrote (June 30, 2006):
Soli Deo Gloria finally have a distributor in Israel, as I discovered this week; so their CDs can now be bought in record stores here. There was one CD set I couldn't help but buy right away, as it contains a record of the only Pilgrimage concert I personally attended.
This was the concert Gardiner gave on March 5, 2000 (the precise 36th anniversary of the foundation of Monteverdi Choir), and it took place in the same venue where the choir gave their very first concert -- the chapel of King's College, Cambridge. I wrote a review of that concert which is available on http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Gardiner-Gen6.htm (you'd have to scroll down a bit to get to my review, though). As you can see there, it was a profoundly moving experience for me, and I've been awaiting its release on CD ever since I learned that the pilgrimage will be coming out on record.
It has been worth the wait. There is little trace of the venue's over-reverberant acoustic -- the microphones must have been placed quite close (I heard the concert from *behind* the performance stage, so I couldn't really see how it was done). The tenor, James Oxley, might actually have benefited from a slightly more distant recording (he sounds slighlty strained at times), but otherwise the recording confirms all my positive impressions from this wonderful concert. So I have little to add beyond what I already said in my concert review -- and I very strongly recommend this CD.
The other CD in the same album contains cantatas BWV 182, BWV 54 and BWV 1. It's another set of excellent performances, though here I had a few more reservations. Cantata BWV 182 is one of these works I now positively prefer to hear one-per-part, and a few instances of over-forceful choral singing further confirmed this preference. I also found parts of Cantata 1 a bit over-pressed -- here, I prefer Koopman's more genial reading. Cantata BWV 54 was suprisingly lyrical and elegiac -- not for the first time, Gardiner proves more expansive and lyrical than Herreweghe (before the Pilgrimage, I would have expected Gardiner to be teh more dramatic conductor, Herreweghe the more lyrical). Personally, I actually prefer to have a touch of anger in the opening aria of Cantata BWV 54 -- but other listeners might well prefer the lyrical, elegiac yet still highly tense and intense approach, in which case they'd defimitely enjoy this recording, with the profoundly moving and deep-voiced alto Nathalie Stutzman. Ove! rall, to my taste, CD 1 in this set is absolutley superb, whereas CD 2 is "merely" very, very good indeed. A recent review, of this and another set, is available on: http://tinyurl.com/m8rrl -- and it's even more positive than mine.
In sum: once more, Bach lovers can feel really grateful that Gardiner's Pilgrimage series is finally availalbe on record. It's proving to be one of the finest complete cycles. |
