Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Eric Milnes, Montréal Baroque :: Bach: Cantates 30, 7 & 167 [Hybrid SACD]

Great new recording of Bach Cantatas

Daniel Ponder | 04/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bach: Cantates 30, 7 & 167 [Hybrid SACD]



This is a very nice cd of Bach cantatas recently put out by the Baroque festival in Montreal, Canada under the direction of Eric Milnes. Eric Milnes follows the school of thought with that of Joshua Rifkin and Andrew Parrot of the Taverner Consort and Players in which he uses one voice per part. The playing is tight and crisp and very clean, the use of continuo is tasteful, particularly in the organ - much lighter than Rifkin's approach on his older Bach recordings and not as heavily improvised and ornamented as Ton Koopman's realisations. The singing is very nice and clean with tasteful ornamentation and reminds me of the better Koopman recordings and sounds lighter than the dark and very "Germanic" sound of the Harnoncourt recordings (a favourite of mine)- more akin to John Eliot Gardiner's recordings.



This is a great cd worth buying for anyone who is curous and wants to introduce themselves to Bach's cantatas or have a different and new ensemble with a fresh and tight sound that is at par, in my opinion, with the canon library of Bach cantatas.



- the bassoonist is Matthieu Lussier by the way"