Johann Sebastian Bach: Bassarien (Bass Arias) is a single Hänssler Classic disc drawn from the massive Complete Bach Edition done under the direction of
Helmuth Rilling. Anyone who has had contact with that edition, or its individual volumes, can tell you that comprehensiveness is its strongest suit. Generally, these performances are alright, not great, but at least a given volume includes every note Bach composed within a certain subdivision of the genres in which he worked. While it might be more of a triumph of programming than a triumph of music, some performances are good, and
Rilling did not skimp when it came to choosing good soloists.
However, this single disc of bass arias taken from Bach's cantatas suffers from a major problem: it does not list, anywhere on the package, the names of individual singers on each track. They aren't even collectively listed in a block somewhere at the end of the notes; the information is simply lacking. One can gather some of the names by scrolling down the front of the listing on the www.allmusic.com entry, as the information was gathered from data derived from the larger sets that were already entered. Some of the singers are famous; names like Philippe Huttenlocher and
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau are certainly not strange ones to listeners even reasonably well-acquainted with Bach's vocal music. As this crucial information was left off the CD track listing, one wonders what this disc could possibly be useful for; at the very least, it compromises the basic purpose of the disc and its program.