The 18th set of Bach's cantatas contains exclusively works of the third yearly cycle from Leipzig. Unlike the first two Leipzig yearly cycles, this one extends over a longer period: from June 1725 until 1727. The works in this set belong essentially to the years 1725-26 and are in some cases chronologically contiguous (BWV 187 and 45; BWV 98, 55, 52), with the result that the original sequence can be easily grasped.

Even by Bach’s standards, they are exceptional. All three of them were conceived as grateful celebrations of the ancient feastday of the Archangel Michael . St Michael’s day commemorates the apocalyptic combat and eventual victory of Michael and the angels of Heaven against the armies of Satan. All three of these cantatas are set for a festive orchestra with strings plus three trumpets, drums, and other luxuries (an extra third hautboy, a traverso in Cantata 130, and hautboys doubling on hautbois d’amour or playing oboe da caccia in Cantata 19).

On 2 March 1714, barely three weeks before his twenty-ninth birthday, the Weimar court organist Johann Sebastian Bach received "the title of Concertmaster." Shortly before he had turned down an important organist's position in Halle; the promotion to concertmaster, granted "at his most humble request," clearly represented a quid pro quo on the part of his employer, Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. As the principal condition of his new post Bach had the obligation "to perform new pieces every month"—in today's parlance, to produce a new cantata on a monthly basis.

Volume 17 in the Bach cantata series contains exclusively works from the third yearly cycle of cantatas from Leipzig, which, unlike the previous two Leipzig cycles, extends over a longer period of time, from June 1725 until 1727. The cantatas in this volume can be divided into three chronologically distinct groups: December-January 1725-26 (BWV 57, 32), September-October 1726 (BWV 35, 17, 19, 169 and 56) and January-February 1727 (BWV 58 and 84).

The five cantatas presented on this disc share several elements. They are all for solo bass and orchestra, and Der am Ölberg zagende Jesus deals with Christ’s agonies in the garden of Gethsemane, with three recitatives setting the scene surrounding two arias for Jesus, ending with an aria by the narrator inviting all to contemplate Christ’s sacrifice. Jesus liegt in letzten Zügen is a meditation on the moment of Christ’s death. Ich will den Kreuzweg gerne gehen expresses the narrator’s desire to follow the way of the cross in Christ’s footsteps. The other two cantatas are more tangentially connected to the events of the passion, although they mention the passion as motivation for the sinner to prepare for eventual union with his Savior.

Our CD presents a selection of five works from the extensive, largely unexplored Easter Cantata oeuvre created by Georg Philipp Telemann during the course of his sixty years in Eisenach (1708-12), Frankfurt am Main (1712-21), and Hamburg (1721-67). Four of the works recorded here date from the 1720s and take us back to the years in Telemann’s creative life as a composer when he was the new music director of Hamburg’s five principal churches and was reorganizing the city’s church music and modernizing it in musical respects.

"Ich bin vergnugt" (I am content) is the title of the new CD by soprano Miriam Feuersinger. It refers to Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata "Ich bin vergnugt mit meinem Glucke" BWV 84, but it also corresponds entirely to the feelings of the singer, who is fulfilling a long-cherished wish of her heart with this programme.

Mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink is a remarkably versatile singer, but she has devoted the bulk of her career to the music of the Baroque. Her impeccable technique, fluent coloratura, and warm, pure tone make this an ideal repertoire for her. She tends to convey a sense of dignity that can come across as reserve. When called upon, as in more emotionally charged repertoire, she can generate the necessary passion, but her naturally dignified musical demeanor ideally suits these Bach cantatas.

Dominik Wörner, a prizewinner at the Bach International Competition in Leipzig in 2002, established the Kirchheimer BachConsort in 2008. Its members, leading musicians from the early music scene, perform as an ensemble of soloists in programs focusing on the repertoire of the eighteenth century. On this brand-new CD release Wörner leads his ensemble and the Czech soprano and harpist Hana Blažiková in interpretations of Johann Sebastian Bach’s dialogue cantatas.

The cantatas in this sixteenth volume are all from the third cycle of Bach's Leipzig cantatas. This yearly cycle began on the First Sunday after Trinity (3 June) 1725 and extended over a period of about three years - unlike the two preceding cycles of 1723-24 and 1724-25. Bach's rhythm of composition had slowed down markedly in the middle of 1725. It is also significant that from February to September 1726 he performed a long series of cantatas by his cousin Johann Ludwig Bach (1677-1731), Kapellmeister at the ducal court of Meiningen. But even if the proportion of original compositions declined markedly, these include a series of particularly accomplished and extended works, such as Cantatas BWV 43, 39, 170 and 102. Musically, Bach's third yearly cycle of cantatas is distinguishable by the fact that they do not begin with large-scale instrumental symphonies, nor do they have unusually extended or richly scored opening movements.

Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Koln s recordings of J. S. Bach are classics of the Early Music movement. Equally revelatory is their championing of the music of the Bach family stretching from the mid-17th to the late 18th century: a treasure trove of vocal and instrumental works. Here they are complete in a single box for the first time, with Magdalena Kozená a stunning soloist.

The cantatas in this fourteenth series fall into four unequal groups: BWV 26, 123,125 and 178 form part of the second yearly cycle of Leipzig church cantatas, which was abruptly broken off in March 1725.The chorale cantatas - based on strophes of church Lieder or church Lieder paraphrased into recitatives and arias - lent the cycle its distinct character. We do not know any tangible reason for the abrupt break-off, but we may assume that it is connected to the death of the author of Bach's texts, Andreas Stübel, deputy headmaster of the Thomasschule, who is presumed to have died on 31 January 1725.For evidently the composer had at his disposal only texts up to the Marian Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March 1725 (BWV 1).While the texts for BWV 6 and 42 are the work of an unknown poet, in Cantatas BWV 74,68 and 103 Bach set texts by the Leipzig poet Mariane von Ziegler, who evidently filled the gap left by the poet of the chorale cantatas. Finally, BWV 1045 is a sinfonia of a cantata dating from the mid-1740s, the other movements of which have not survived.

The present set is the debut of Ton Koopman on the Challenge Classics label and the re-start of the series of complete cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. Volume 13 in this CD presentation contains the third series of chorale cantatas from the second annual cycle Bach composed for Leipzig. Music criticism in the modern sense did not exist in the eighteenth century, so we do not really know anything about how the public responded to Bach's music. One of the few comments we have is in a newspaper report of Bach's first appearance in the capacity of Cantor of St Thomas's, presenting a cantata on 30 May 1723,but we learn only that it was received with approbation, even applause.

The cantatas in this volume all date from Johann Sebastian Bach's second year of office as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. The series of chorale cantatas, which breaks off in early 1725, forms an almost complete yearly cycle which derives an exceptional unity of style and content from its debt to established Lutheran hymnody. Almost all the cantatas contain the first and last verse of a hymn, the other verses being paraphrased in recitatives and arias. Practically any selection of the chorale cantatas will display the unusually rich variety of form and colour that is one of their most distinctive features.

Previously begun on Erato, Koopman's cantata cycle was taken over and completed in 2007 on Challenge Classics. It now looks set to surpass the famous Leonhardt-Harnoncourt set on Teldec (and indeed most of his other competitors). Koopman favours an intimate approach to the choruses - namely one voice to a part. Also, he opts for females soloists rather than boys, as would have been the case in Bach's day, and he favours mixed rather than solely male choirs. For many this will be a plus point, and it is good news for fans of Barbara Schlick. He goes for slightly higher than normal pitch - a semi-tone above present day pitch, which, as Christopher Wolff's notes point out, is what Bach used in Mühlhausen and Weimar, brightening the sonority quite a lot. The singing in virtually all the cantatas is pretty impressive and the instrumental playing is of a very high order.