Bach cantatas (Koopman)

Volume 2 of the original release of the Koopman Bach cantatas on Erato, 1995

The Bach cantatas project of Ton Koopman was the first complete recording of all the cantatas, including the 21 secular cantatas. Koopman conducted the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir and guest solo singers. The project began in 1995 and was completed in 2005 on 67 CDs.

It was the second recording of the 193 sacred cantatas after the Harnoncourt-Leonhardt Bach cantatas project to use early instruments. Koopman unlike Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt did not use boy choirs, but female sopranos, although Bach would have mainly used boys' voices to perform the soprano lines of his cantatas.

Koopman's project started on Erato Records, but was nearly derailed when Warner — which had acquired the Harnoncourt-Leonhardt Bach cantata recordings when it acquired Teldec from Telefunken in 1988 — also acquired Erato, thus making Koopman's new project a duplication within Warner's catalogue. Koopman was initially confident, and the project continued under Warner ownership,^[1] but Koopman's project was one of the first cutbacks when Warner Classics scaled down new recordings across its classical music subsidiaries and wound up Erato entirely in 2002.^[2] Warner cancelled the project and proceeded to dump stocks of volumes 1–12 in the discount bins at retailers like HMV and Tower. However Warner allowed Koopman to buy the tapes to 1–12 so he could continue independently. Koopman then founded his own label "Antoine Marchand" (a pun on his own name in French) distributed by Dutch Jazz and classics distributor Challenge Classics.^[3]

Koopman's interpretations — which include favouring a choir with four singers per part — were underpinned by his own musicological researches and those of the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff.^[4] Vocal soloists for the project include Lisa Larsson, Sandrine Piau, Sibylla Rubens, Barbara Schlick, Caroline Stam, Cornelia Samuelis, Deborah York and Johannette Zomer (soprano), Bogna Bartosz, Michael Chance, Franziska Gottwald, Bernhard Landauer, Elisabeth von Magnus, Annette Markert and Kai Wessel (alto), Paul Agnew, Jörg Dürmüller, James Gilchrist, Christoph Prégardien and Gerd Türk (tenor) and Klaus Mertens (bass).

Koopman also released a video performance of 6 Bach cantatas with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir in 2007.

References

↑ Billboard – 1996 7 20 p33 "Bach on the harpsichord. And the fact that Ton Koopman is engaged in a Bach cantata project on Erato worries him not at all."
↑ Billboard – 2003 7 5 p13 p115 "Koopman Gets Back On His Bach Cycle Music – Ton Koopman was well into the recording of what he deems the project of his lifetime: a complete cycle of the cantatas of ... already been issued when Koopman received word that Erato, the label for which he was recording the monumental cycle, ... Ironically, when Koopman was notified that Warner was abandoning the project, he had just spent three weeks of ..."
↑ Goldberg: early music magazine −2003 22–25 p43 "INTERVIEW As a harpsichordist, organist and conductor, Ton Koopman is one of the few musicians who can perform most of Bach's works. ... Despite the projects artistic success, its completion was threatened when Warner, Eratos parent company, pulled the plug on the series. ... I now also own the tapes of the Bach cantatas that were previously released by Erato, so these older volumes, numbers 1–12 ..."
↑ Billboard – 1998 6 20 p53 "And a scholar like Donald Mitchell contributes to making Riccardo Chailly's Mahler cycle on Decca/London satisfying beyond the stellar musicianship, as does Christoph Wolff with Ton Koopman's Bach cantata series on Erato."

Church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach

Before Leipzig	Early: BWV 4 131 71 106 196 150 143 Weimar: BWV 61 70a 186a 132 174a 63 152 155 18 54 80a 182 31 12 172 165 21 185 199 161 162 163 Köthen: BWV Anh. 5

First cycle (1723–24)	Between Trinity and Advent: BWV 75 76 24 167 147 186 136 105 46 179 69a 77 25 138 95 148 48 109 89 60 90 70 From Advent to Trinity: BWV 40 64 190 153 65 154 73 81 83 144 181 22 23 66 134 67 104 166 86 37 44 59 184

Second cycle (& chorale cantatas)	Chorale cantatas between Trinity and Easter: BWV 20 2 7 135 10 93 107 178 94 101 113 33 78 99 8 130 114 96 5 180 38 115 139 26 116 62 91 121 133 122 41 123 124 3 111 92 125 126 127 1 Continuation of the second cycle: BWV 6 42 85 103 108 87 128 183 74 68 175 176 Later additions to the chorale cantata cycle: BWV 80 137 129 58 112 140 177 9 14 Other late chorale cantatas: BWV 117 192 100 97

Third cycle	After Trinity 1725: BWV 168 164 79 Liturgical year 1725–26: BWV 110 57 151 28 16 32 13 72 146 43 39 88 170 187 45 102 35 17 19 27 47 169 56 49 98 55 52 1727: BWV 82 84 34 173

Later and other	Picander cycle: BWV 149 188 197a 171 156 159 145 174 Late parodies: BWV 36 30 191 200 1083 Council election: BWV 119 193 Anh. 3 29 120 69 Wedding: BWV 34a 195 120a 197 Funeral: 157 244a Other: 194 190a 120b 51 158 50 248/VIa Doubtful: 53 142 189 217 220 221 223 224

Bach cantata List of Bach cantatas Discography: Monteverdi Choir/Koopman/Teldec

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