Every now and then, a cantata recording knocks my socks off. It happened this week. And since I need to keep this post short, I’ll leave the other five articles I had brewing in my mind on the shelf for the future, and I’ll just tell you about that one recording.

It’s the Leipzig version of Cantata 162 Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe by Bach Akademie Stuttgart under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann, from their Vision Bach series, Volume 4. The opening movement gives me the good kind of stomach ache, thanks to gorgeous singing by Tobias Berndt, unparalleled corno da tirarsi playing by Anneke Scott, and this fantastic orchestra. Another highlight is the duet by alto Marie Henriette Reinhold and tenor Patrick Grahl, accompanied by a terrific continuo group.

Find this recording on YouTube or on Spotify in playlists created by me. To learn more about Bach Akademie Stuttgart’s Vision Bach series and how to purchase the CDs, read my post about their recording of Cantatas 105 and 46. Find the German texts with English translations here, and the score here.

Cantata 162 – A Short History

Bach wrote this cantata originally for the 20th Sunday after Trinity in 1716 in Weimar, setting texts by his favorite librettist there, court librarian Salomon Franck. Franck transforms the question “Am I dressed properly?” from the The Parable of the Unworthy Wedding Guest (Matthew 22:1-14, the Gospel for this Sunday) into “Have I made the right choices?”

Since Bach had limited performance space in the Duke’s chapel in Weimar, he composed this original piece for a small instrumental ensemble: strings, bassoon, and continuo, plus likely a solo wind instrument for the soprano aria (movement 3).*

Anneke Scott – The Queen of the Corno da Tirarsi

For the 1723 performance in Leipzig, Bach added a corno da tirarsi in the first and last movements. In his time, most probably the only person who could play the corno da tirarsi was Gottfried Reiche, because Bach stopped writing for this instrument after Reiche’s death in 1732.

Today, we are lucky to have more than one musician who can handle this instrument. I’m thinking of Alain de Rudder (Herreweghe), Toshio Shimada (Suzuki), Robert Vanryne (Netherlands Bach Society), and last but not least, Olivier Picon (J.S. Bach Foundation), who did important research on the instrument and initiated Egger’s reconstruction of the original. But for me, the Queen of the corno da tirarsi is Anneke Scott. I already talked about her fabulous performance in Cantatas 46 and 105 on Volume 3 of Rademann’s Vision Bach several weeks ago, and in this Cantata 162 she does it again! Her playing is simply stunning, I have never heard the corno da tirarsi played with such beautiful phrasing and sound quality as she does on these Vision Bach recordings.

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© Wieneke Gorter, October 17, 2026.

*For his recording in 1996 (Yumiko Kurisu, soprano; Yoshimichi Hamada, recorder) Masaaki Suzuki created a part for solo recorder, which has subsequently also been used by Lutz/J.S. Bach Foundation (Gerlinde Sämann, soprano; Annina Stahlberger, recorder) and for the performance discussed here by Rademann/Bach Akademie Stuttgart (Catalina Bertucci, soprano; Andreas Helm, recorder).