Bach : Messes luthériennes, Vol. 1. The Sixteen.

   in Early Music Today (Jun, 2014)
Harry Christophers and The Sixteen’s second volume of J. S. Bach’s Lutheran Masses maintains the high standards of the first volume, reviewed in the previous issue of EMT. As before, two masses frame the cantata from which significant amounts of their musical material is drawn – in this case BWV 236 and BWV 234 enfold BWV 79, Gott der Herr ist Sonn’ und Schild. For example, the alto aria ‘Quoniam tu solus’ in BWV 234 is musically identical to the obbligato oboe solo in the second movement of Cantata 79, except that the accompanying strings are an octave lower in the latter.

Christophers’ decision to include only eight voices in …