Sigiswald Kuijken was once just the violin-playing Kuijken who used to join his brothers, the transverse flute-playing
Barthold and the viola da gamba playing
Wieland, plus harpsichord playing
Gustav Leonhardt to perform and record Baroque chamber music. After his gut-wrenching, soul-transforming recording of
Bach's solo violin sonatas and partitas, Sigiswald Kuijken gradually moved on to conducting, principally his own ensemble, La Petite Bande. But moving up doesn't always mean moving away, and with this disc of four church cantatas by
Bach, Kuijken is back in familiar territory.
Bach's cantatas, like his piety, tended to the gloomier side of post-Thirty Years' War German Lutheranism, and with titles like Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen (I will carry my cross) and Ich armer Mensch, Ich Sündenknecht (I am a poor man, a slave of sin), Kuijken's choice of repertoire betrays his spiritual sympathies. Kuijken, as he always has, aims at the heart and spirit, eliciting deeply devotional performances from his musicians. The playing is warmly characterful but still deeply polished, while the singing, especially ardent soprano
Sophie Karthäuser and soulful tenor
Christoph Genz's, is always excellent. Captured in Accent's clean, rich sound, these performances deserve to be heard by anyone who loves
Bach's cantatas.