This 1981 recording, originally recorded by the West German Radio in Cologne, still offers one of the few samples of music by one of the least-known members of the Bach clan: J.S. Bach's cousin Johann Ludwig Bach, who worked for most of his life at the court of Meiningen in the Thuringia region. Living from 1677 to 1731, he was slightly older than J.S. Bach, and the younger Bach is known to have admired some of these pieces -- he had them copied out for the use of the ensembles he directed in Leipzig. The four cantatas here would be worth hearing on that count alone, and one can see why J.S. Bach valued them -- they have a flexible response to their (mostly biblical) texts that contrasts sharply from the squarish, strophic approaches of the other Bach forerunner. The Italianate aria shapes on which Bach drew for maximum dramatic impact were in their infancy when these works were written (although the composer was clearly interested in them, just like his more famous cousin), but the religious ideas contained in the texts are vividly and personally expressed. Sample the aria Tau und Tränen (Dew and tears) from the cantata Die mit Tränen säen (Those who sow with tears), track 26, for an introduction to both the musical material and the performance. Bach's deliberate setting of this little couplet is far from the straightforward, singsong thing any number of his contemporaries might have offered. Alto soloist Mary Nichols, part of a mixed German and English group of soloists, is cool and low-powered, and the performance in general is restrained to a degree that will annoy those who prefer the more full-blooded
John Eliot Gardiner approach to J.S. Bach's music. The polished, sweet sound of the mixed-gender Jugendkantorei Dormagen (not all of them look quite so jung in the photo supplied) drains some of the life out of the music. The ensemble
Das kleine Konzert apparently uses modern instruments. The 1981 sound has held up well, and in all there is nothing here to stop the listener from learning something about Johann Ludwig Bach.