Stylish and characterful Bach concertos from Japan

 J. S. Bach: Harpsichord Concertos 3, 4, 6 & 7

This is the second release from BIS of Bach Harpsichord Concertos by Masato Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan - the first was released in 2020. I've long been a lover of the recordings of this orchestra, especially the landmark series of Bach Cantatas under Masato's father, and the group's founder, Mazaaki Suzuki. Though this is a very small subset of musicians - only two violins and a single viola, cello and bass - there is the same nuance and character here as in the Cantatas and Passions. There's also the same warm sound envelope provided by the BIS engineers, producers and editors, and the marvellous, innovative BIS design and marketing, developed over years of collaboration between Japan and Sweden.

Like his father, Masato Suzuki is a very fine harpsichordist, and is fast becoming known around the world as a conductor. He's made the move from the continuo section - Baroque's Special Teams unit - to the podium with style; he's now the Principal Conductor of Bach Collegium Japan. I look forward to more recordings, of Bach, other Baroque composers and beyond, from this excellent musician.

A prayerful Passion

Bach: St. Matthew Passion

A new decade is a time for new beginnings, so this release is well-timed: it's a second recording of the St. Matthew Passion from Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan. The first version, from 2000, was generally well received. Robin Tuttle's Classical Net review pretty well sums up the critical consensus: "Suzuki takes us gently by the hand and shows us Bach not at his most imposing, but at his most humane."

The new album needs only 2 CDs instead of 3, but this isn't because of any speeding up; the new recording is actually a couple of minutes longer. This time around BIS jams everything into two 80-minute plus CDs. The main difference between the two recordings is in the vocal soloists. Gerd Türk followed Suzuki's meditative approach as the Evangelist in the first version, while the equally strong Benjamin Bruns is somewhat, but not a lot, less dramatic this time around. I was especially impressed with the great Nancy Argenta in the first recording; this time around I loved Carolyn Sampson. Suzuki has doubled down in the new recording, with more even more gentle arias and prayerful chorales; the keyword here is definitely "devotional". This might seem to be a small change, but the cumulative effect is awesome, almost breathtaking. 

The new year is fraught with danger and portents of doom; we need the consolation of Johann Sebastian Bach more than ever. The most reliable purveyors of this are, in my opinion, Masaaki Suzuki and the musicians of Bach Collegium Japan.

This album will be released February 7, 2020.

A spiritual performance without sentimentality

Beethoven: Symphony no. 9

Those of you who follow my reviews know that my favourite large recording project is BIS's series of Bach Cantatas with the Bach Collegium Japan, under Masaaki Suzuki. With this great enterprise all wrapped up, it's been fascinating to follow these fine musicians as they move on to other composers. A recent recording of the Missa Solemnis showed us that Suzuki was a very fine Beethoven interpreter. It's been exciting to listen closely to this new recording of Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

In 2015 Maestro Suzuki conducted the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in Beethoven's 9th Symphony. This is an impressive performance indeed, but on his home ground, with his own instrumental and choral forces, he has turned up the energy, without sacrificing any nuance. I see that the Bergen performance featured the same very fine soprano from the Japanese recording, Ann-Helen Moen. The rest of the vocal soloists, from both Bergen and Japan, are outstanding.  As well, I sense some subtle interpretation differences in the four years between these performance. Suzuki has a more reverent attitude in the slow movement, while Beethoven's more boisterous passages are almost completely unbridled. This is, as I would expect, a 9th Symphony full of spiritual feeling, but completely without sentimentality.

Symfoni nr. 9 (Beethoven) - Bergen Filharmoniske Orkester from Bergen Filharmoniske Orkester on Vimeo.

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J. S. Bach: Cantatas of contentment. Ich bin in wir vergnugt, BWV 204; Angelehmes Wiederau, BWV 30a

Series finales can leave one puzzled (Lost), nostalgic (Cheers), or intrigued (The Sopranos). One of the most bitter-sweet moments in my classical music life was when I realized that Masaaki Suzuki's fabulous Bach Sacred Cantata series with Bach Collegium Japan on BIS, recorded from 1995 to 2014, was finally complete. This is one of the greatest accomplishments of recorded music. But it didn't feel quite as sad as it could have been, since there were still the Secular Cantatas to come, and those have been quite eye-opening for me. But with this release even those Cantatas are finished.

What a great way to end, though, with two "Cantatas of contentment"! The first movement of Angenehmes Wiederau, BWV 30a, is the most joyous celebration you could imagine.


I commend to everyone reading this review John Eliot Gardner's book Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, and particularly in this context, Chapter 8 "Cantatas or Coffee?"

To comprehend the social, liturgical and performance background for his public music-making in his Leipzig years, we need to explore these two parallel worlds of music, one sacred, one secular, and these two public meeting places, one over 500 years old, the other relatively new. 

Certainly one could listen to Gardner's own recordings of the Bach Cantatas while reading this - they're very fine, of course - but I found every point Gardner made be better understand the music Suzuki has been guiding me through since the mid-1990s. I'll be living with this music for the rest of my life, and - who knows? - even beyond.

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Beethoven from the heart

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis

At the top of the autograph score of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis the composer wrote the motto "From the heart, may it return to the heart!" Conductor Masaaki Suzuki has made this the keynote of an impressive new recording of this late work, emphasizing the very personal, almost ecstatic spirituality Beethoven added to what might not have seemed at first a congenial musical project. Suzuki is a deeply religious man, whose faith infuses all the music he makes, and he begins by taking seriously Beethoven's setting in a liturgical context. Beethoven's Christianity may not have always been orthodox, but it was always sincere. Indeed, I don't think he had an insincere bone in his body! So there's indeed a Bachian (and Handelian) air about this music, and Suzuki also highlights the other older sources Beethoven brings in (which the composer referred to as "the monk's Church chorales". But Suzuki remains true to the score, and with some by now unsurprisingly perfect choral singing from his amazing choir, he brings true authenticity, but also a new freshness and immediacy to this sublime music. The soloists are also all first-class. I was especially impressed with tenor James Gilchrist, who made a strong impression as The Evangelist in John Eliot Gardner's recent St. Matthew Passion, and mezzo-soprano Roxana Constantinescu, so good in Stravinsky's Pulcinella under Boulez.

This album will be released on March 2, 2018. Here is the first part of the Gloria from a live Bach Collegium Japan performance in 2017.

Style and grace; warmth and humanity

Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Celebrating the completion of the recording of Bach's sacred cantatas.

In 2013 Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan finished a massive 18-year project: the recording of all of J.S. Bach's sacred cantatas. All 55 SACDs are now available in a special box-set from BIS.

To mark the end of the project this film was made at the Shoin Chapel in Kobe, where all of the recordings had been made over a period of 18 years. It includes performances of three complete cantatas, BWV 30, 69 and 191, interspersed with interviews with the musicians and various interested parties. The very fine HD video and superb surround sound give you a vivid picture of how this awesome music went from Bach's mind to Maestro Suzuki's, and then to Super-Audio Compact Discs. More than just musical skills are on display here. You see the style and grace of the vocal soloists as they move from soloist roles back into the superbly integrated choral sound. The three virtuoso trumpeters, holding their instruments with one hand with their other hand on their waists, swaying to the music with the proud look of Samurai warriors. Perhaps most importantly you see the warmth and humanity of the great leader, Masaaki Suzuki, whose faith is as important as his scholarship and musicianship.

Here is an excerpt, the Dona Nobis Pacem from the B minor Mass, a coda which ends the disc.

Mixtape from Johann Sebastian

Celebratory Cantatas: J.S. Bach Secular Cantatas, volume 8

A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You’ve got to kick it off with a corker, to hold the attention, and then you’ve got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and... oh, there are loads of rules. 

- Nick Hornby, High Fidelity, 1995

In October 1734 Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, made a surprise visit to Leipzig and Bach put down everything he was doing to cobble together a celebratory cantata in the Elector's honour. This was Preise dein Glucke, BWV 215, one of two fabulous works on the new Bach Collegium Japan disc, volume 8 in their Secular Cantatas series from BIS. With only a few days in which to work, Bach re-used some of the music he had lying around, notably the fabulous first movement of his 1732 cantata Es lebe der König, der Vater im Lande, BWV Anh 11, set for two four-part choirs, as a base for the opening chorus. This is joyous music, full of pomp and pagentry, with trumpets blazing and drums pounding. For 18th century composers dealing with their patrons the currency was always flattery.  If Augustus III was paying attention at all, he must have been mightily impressed by this compliment. This is courtly music at the very highest level. The second cantata, written for the birthday of Augustus, is every bit as bright and appealing. Masaaki Suzuki and his amazing Bach Collegium Japan bring the same dedication, musicianship and scholarship to this recording that they have to every Bach cantata they've performed over the years, with an extra helping of high spirits. This is very highly recommended!

Released June 2, 2017.

Personal and theatrical trump liturgical

I've been living with the perfect Bach sound of Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan for many years, during their supreme BIS series of Bach recordings, most especially the cantatas. Then it was time to switch to Mozart, with last year's excellent Requiem, and now this special recording of the Great Mass in C Minor, due to be released on December 9, 2016. As to the switch, there are no concerns from me; this is Mozart singing and playing of perfect taste and impeccable style. Indeed, Masaaki Suzuki has recently shown how adaptable and nimble he can be, with this spring's release of an excellent Stravinsky disc with the Tapiola Sinfonietta.

I always listen to Mozart of any genre through the lens of opera, and I like what I hear in the drama, and indeed the theatricality, of many passages in this performance. At this stage in his career, Mozart had recently completed Idomeneo, and was working on Die Entführung aus dem Serail. In other words, he was working through a process where the more formal opera seria was becoming more grounded in reality at the same time as flights of fancy were allowed to blossom in opera buffa. This loss of formal frameworks pays out as well in the fragmentary nature of the Mass, which is missing segments of key liturgical importance. This recording uses Franz Beyer's 1989 completion, based on Mozart's sketches for some of the missing music. It all sounds very much like Mozart, and, more to the point, very personal Mozart, considering the rationale for its first performance. This was a celebration of his recent marriage to Constanza, and it was Constanza who sang the very important soprano role in the first performance. Among the excellent group of solo voices here the soprano Carolyn Sampson stands out, as she did in the Requiem, and as needs she must in the Mass. Maestro Suzuki makes a very convincing case for theatrical and personal impulses trumping conventions of purely liturgical importance.

BIS fills up the disc with an equally convincing performance of the early work Exsultate, Jubilate, which is full of surface brilliance and sparkle. The entire package is very highly recommended.

Earthy fun from Maestro Suzuki

If I had to choose one major recording project this century I think I'd go for the Bach Cantatas series on BIS with Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki (I'd cheat and add Bach's other major choral masterworks). Suzuki never lets us down; he chooses the right singers, his choir and instrumentalists are scrupulously prepared, his tempi are nearly always bang on, and most importantly through all of this he has something interesting to say related to Bach and Baroque music, and religion and history and performance practice. Throughout this project Suzuki, along with his gifted musicians and the just-as-gifted BIS producers and engineers, communicates a gentle peace, but keeps a strong joy bubbling just below the surface.

All of this is obviously apparent in the Passions and the Mass, but it's even more appreciated in the lesser works, and those that come from the quotidian working musician rather than the great genius communing directly with God. The Peasant Cantata has always been fairly popular; I counted about 25 different versions on Amazon.com. There are some great tunes here, and a chance for the vocal soloists to characterize and even ham it up a bit. But its popularity also comes partly because it fits well on a CD with the Coffee Cantata, and partly because the record company gets to put on the record cover a cool Breughel-style picture of Flemish peasants having a grand time. Suzuki, though, comes through with something that sounds close to what Bach might have written for the opera stage. There is, of course, no real dramatic spark here, nothing like what is evident in even the earliest operas of Mozart. But there's a proto-singspiel feeling, with a fairly coherent libretto by Picander about young lovers, quotations of popular folk songs and the introduction of popular dance rhythms. Suzuki brings a vital, earthy feel to my favourite number, the final duet Wir gehn nun, wo der Dudelsack, by adding very cool drone sounds. I haven't heard any other version using this (I just listened to a dozen on the Naxos Music Library), and there's no indication in the liner notes as to how it was accomplished. The scoring indicated reads only "Corno, Flauto traverso, Violino I, II, Viola, Soprano, Basso, Continuo, Cembalo", but I suspect maybe it involved trumpet mouthpieces or, who knows?, kazoos. I'm not sure if anyone has ever staged the Peasant Cantata, but it sure sounds like it might be surprisingly effective, perhaps as part of an opera gala. But only if it's played and sung as perfectly as this.

Rather than the Coffee Cantata, we have for fillers two Italian cantatas of doubtful authorship. What isn't doubtful is the quality of the music, which is very high. There's no slacking off by the Suzuki and his forces, of course; this sounds like medium- if not top-drawer Bach to my untutored ears, though of course it's odd to hear Bach sung in Italian. So it's a surprisingly fun hour and a bit from BIS and Maestro Suzuki, though I guess it's no surprise it's so good. This CD is due to be released on September 9, 2016.

Music of solace

Earlier this month I took the long way around - through Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix - to a discussion of J.S. Bach's creative adaptation of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. Now we have this beautiful version of Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden, BWV 1083, by my favourite bunch of Cantata musicians, Bach Collegium Japan, under Masaaki Suzuki. Though we don't know anything about the event for which this was written, I believe Bach felt solace might be found in the Italian grace and beauty of Pergolesi's work, though there isn't much Italian sunshine to be found in the heart-breaking sadness of the music and the highly personal words of Mary mourning for her Son. Bach also provides uplift in his substitution of the Psalm 51 for the 13th century poem Stabat Mater. A spirited exchange between soprano and alto goes like this in the original:

Fac, ut árdeat cor meum
in amándo Christum Deum
ut sibi compláceam.

Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.

In Bach's version, the music is much less driven; it's conciliatory and in the end joyful. There's also been a significant change in the words:

Laß mich Freud und Wonne spüren,
daß die Gebeine triumphieren,
da dein Kreuz mich hart gedrängt.

Your cross pressed hard on me; now let me feel joy and
bliss and let the body triumph.

The joy comes through perfectly in this version of the work, as it nearly always does in Suzuki's performances. It's there as well in the more formal Trauerode (Funeral Ode) BWV 198, written for the funeral of Christiane Eberhardine, the wife of the Polish King and Elector of Saxony Augustus the Strong. This is highly sophisticated music, based on highly sophisticated theology. Whether solace for grief is sought in music or in words, it never hurts to have Bach involved.

Everything old is new again, and again

Bach was a towering genius, right up there with Leonardo and Shakespeare, but he was also a working musician who needed to come up with music every week. In the latest release from Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan we get a glimpse of the composer’s every-day world, though it's rare for the quotidian to impose itself on this spectacularly beautiful music. Reworking previous music is an obvious strategy, and Bach is busy plundering his cantatas in these Lutheran Masses. What’s amazing here is the care he took in doing this, with new instrumentation and subtle changes in melody and harmony. He obviously had enormous respect for his audience to take this much trouble; I hope the parishioners in his church appreciated this! There’s also evidence of the deeply religious composer’s interest in theology. These masses represent a cogent personal Christology which mattered at least as much to Bach as the music itself. An interesting bonus in this disc is the inclusion of a short mass by Marco Gioseppe Peranda, a Roman composer from the generation before Bach who was active in Dresden until 1675. It’s here because music historians have found parts of the mass in Bach’s own hand, showing that he presented Peranda’s music along with his own masses.

Suzuki has a special connection with Bach that has only grown over the 20 years since he convinced BIS president Robert van Bahr to let him record the cantatas with his Bach Collegium Japan. And under Suzuki’s leadership his musicians have the precision, clarity and grace to make Bach’s music sound both timeless and spontaneous. This disc is recommended just as highly as Volume 1, from last year.

Here's Bach's autograph of the A major Mass, BWV 234: