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Reviewer:
Jonathan Freeman-Attwood Inspired by the splendour of the Royal Chapel at Versailles, the Château Spectacles series of concerts and recordings adds the youthful La Chapelle Harmonique to its opulent catalogue with two vibrant performances of Bach’s Yuletide masterpieces. Any project that opens with Christen, ätzet is truly throwing down the gauntlet and Valentin Tournet responds to the trickily resonant acoustic with a regal opening chorus, complemented by the two exquisite duets that define this pearl of a cantata from Bach’s early years in Weimar. The balance between voices and instruments is about as ideal as you could imagine. Yet what is most striking about this recording is how Tournet presents an identity for his ensemble: controlled – but not controlling – tempos lay the ground for unmannered shaping, poised and elongated vocal lines, and all assisted greatly by an ‘orchestral’ sound that is confidently full but never forced. If more experienced directors might explore greater rhetorical signposting (I think immediately of Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion or the Ricercar Consort under Philippe Pierlot), Tournet tends to light the touch paper and gently position it at the heart of his glowingly cohesive group.
The Magnificat evolves naturally into a Marian canticle reading whose
short movements very effectively reach forwards into one another. It’s helped by
adopting the first version, in E flat, with the four additional hymns (‘laudes’)
for Bach’s first Christmas Day in Leipzig in 1723. Set pieces such as ‘Et
misericordia’ and ‘Deposuit potentes’ stand out with particular fervour and
theatricality when preceded by these unadorned motets, whose seasonal melodies
the congregation would have relished.
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