Bach: Secular Cantatas Vol. 8 – Masaaki Suzuki

   in Early Music Today (Dec, 2017)
For the eighth volume in his survey of Bach’s secular cantatas, Masaaki Suzuki has brought together two works that shamelessly flatter August III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland – and someone from whom Bach was hoping to receive a court appointment. In October 1734, August made a surprise visit to Leipzig and Bach hastily put together a cantata – Preise dein Glücke, BWV 215 – reusing music from earlier works for the opening double chorus as well as for the tenor and bass arias. Apart from this magnificent double chorus (which he later revised again for the Osanna in excelsis of the B minor Mass), a newly composed …