Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists / Gardiner, Old Royal Naval College Chapel, Greenwich, London

Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Bach Cantata Pilgrimage returned to home ground to mark the second Sunday after Epiphany, drawing a capacity audience in Greenwich. Epiphany in Bach's Lutheran church was less a time for great rejoicing than one for recalling the season's hardships and reminding flocks to keep the faith. The composer's three cantatas for the second Sunday deal with themes of doubt and reassurance, jointly explored in the tortured emotions of the bass aria "Ächzen und erbärlich Weinen" ("Groaning and painful weeping") from Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen BWV 13.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Bach Cantata Pilgrimage returned to home ground to mark the second Sunday after Epiphany, drawing a capacity audience in Greenwich. Epiphany in Bach's Lutheran church was less a time for great rejoicing than one for recalling the season's hardships and reminding flocks to keep the faith. The composer's three cantatas for the second Sunday deal with themes of doubt and reassurance, jointly explored in the tortured emotions of the bass aria "Ächzen und erbärlich Weinen" ("Groaning and painful weeping") from Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen BWV 13.

The latter was sung with almost unbearable passion and commitment to the text by Gerald Finley. Natural expression of words was a compelling feature of this concert, with Julian Podger's tenor recitatives suggesting he has the resources to become an outstanding interpreter of Bach's Evangelist roles.

The programme also included the motet Jesu, meine Freude. Although the choir contains a healthy share of former Oxbridge choristers, its sensibilities in many respects owe as much to the opera house as to the collegiate chapel. The consolations of hearing a full-blooded and musical group of singers at work proved more than sufficient to compensate for occasional blemishes in pro- nunciation and balance.

There were fine things, too, in the cantatas, introduced in Mein Gott, wie lang, ach lange BWV 155 by Philip Turbett's faultless circumnavigation of the sprightly bassoon part in the aria for alto and teno, and crowned by Joanne Lunn's joyful expression of the soprano aria "Wirf, mein Herze, wirf dich noch, in des Höchsten Liebesarme". Lunn's technical resources were certainly attractive, yet it was the singer's commitment to words and their message that here left the deepest impression.

Andrew Stewart