Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent allow Bach’s cantatas to speak.
To describe the cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach as Gebrauchsmuzik, or ‘utility music’, seems almost sacrilegious. And yet Bach did not compose these gems for his own benefit, but for his clients and the higher powers. The cantatas differ widely in terms of content and mood, but Bach always succeeds in rhyming the meaning and images of the text with the music itself. A good example is the unrelenting downward movement and the many musical sighs in the orchestra during the early cantata ‘Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen’. In the other cantatas too, Bach narrates as much with the music as he does with the text. It is apparent from the quality of the scores that he had brilliant musicians at his disposal. Fortunately we have Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent.