Album review: John Eliot Gardiner, Bach Cantatas 28 (Soli Deo Gloria)

John Eliot Gardiner, Bach Cantatas 28 (Soli Deo Gloria)

It's rather apt that John Eliot Gardiner's marathon cycle of Bach cantatas should finally be completed with those written for Ascension Day, recorded at St Giles Cripplegate 12 years after the original “pilgrimage” recordings of 2000. The four cantatas feature mostly new soloists but sustain the series' high standards.

The opening “Gott Fähret auf mit Jauchzen” is particularly magnificent, the Monteverdi Choir's lines interlacing with the beatific nobility of the English Baroque Soloists' high trumpets to create a truly joyous sound with which to celebrate not just Christ's ascension but the completion of the cycle – a glorious realisation of the spirit implied in lines like “God is gone up with a shout.”

Download: Gott Fähret auf mit Jauchzen; Lobet Gott in Seinen Reichen