St Thomas’s Boys Choir: |Cantatas for the Ascension 6/10

The liturgical year with Johann Sebastian Bach: Rondeau Production and Deutschlandradio Kultur are currently releasing a ten-disc CD series with Thomanerchor Leipzig (St Thomas’s Boys Choir Leipzig). The choir presents selected cantatas for the liturgical year in new, vibrant recordings. The music for the liturgy holds a very special place at St Thomas’s Church Leipzig: even today, the church’s boys choir and the Gewandhausorchester (Gewandhaus Orchestra) perform a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach every week. The present CD features three cantatas for the feast of the Ascension, composed and performed by Bach between 1724 and 1726: Wer da gläubet und getauft wird (BWV 37) has a fairly restrained scoring for a festal cantata, but is nonetheless musically highly appealing. With only five movements, the cantata Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein (BWV 128) is rather short: its large-scale, eponymous opening chorale, however, is stunning. The longest cantata of this CD, Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen (BWV 43), has eleven movements and is of particularly festive character, expressed prominently by trumpets, timpani, and oboes. Georg Christoph Biller, current cantor at St Thomas, performs the cantatas with extraordinary boys’ voices in the solo parts for soprano and alto, a sign of the new recording’s unique quality.