Bach: The Vocal Works (Cantatas, Passions, Oratorios, Masses, Motets) – Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki

Hailed by the international music press and highly praised by music connoisseurs, the recordings of Bach’s entire body of vocal music made by the Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ), its conductor Masaaki Suzuki and numerous prestigious soloists, many of whom have remained remarkably loyal to the undertaking from the outset, are here brought together to form the only complete set of these works in SACD format. Suzuki’s aim with these works is to deliver ‘a message which can touch the human heart, regardless of nationality or cultural tradition’, and so he delivers performances characterised by a particular attention to natural phrasing and timbral homogeneity in the service of transparency, a finely articulated expression without affectation and a balanced dialogue between voices and instruments. In addition to its 78 discs which include sacred and secular cantatas, the two Passions, the Christmas, Easter and Ascension Oratorios, the Mass in B minor, the motets, the Magnificat, the Lutheran Masses as well as songs and alternative movements, this box set includes four booklets providing essays about the music (in English, German and French) by world-renowned experts on the music as well as all the sung texts (in German and English translation).