Tag Archives: Georg Poplutz

Gli Angeli Genève’s Chorale Cantata Box & Cantata 114 for Trinity 17

26 Saturday Sep 2026

Posted by in Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Trinity

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This week I returned from a wonderful vacation in the Scottish Highlands. While I miss the stunning nature and the friendly people, it was much easier to get back to writing than normally after a trip, because this fall I’m part of an all-women writer’s group. Two times a week we all log in to Zoom and then do our own writing for 2 hours and receive inspiring coaching by Jennifer Louden. The community and accountability work wonders for me, and I hope that after the group disbands in December, I will have sufficiently strengthened the commitment to myself to keep making time for my writing, and keep my standards at a realistic level.

Gli Angeli Genève’s Chorale Cantata Box

“The Complete Chorale Cantatas” by Gli Angeli Genève, released in 2025.

Continuing to highlight remarkable cantata recordings that came out over the past few years, this time I would like to put the spotlight on baritone Stephan MacLeod’s ensemble Gli Angeli Genève. And before you start giggling about about me featuring a Scottish conductor after coming back from a trip to Scotland, Stephan MacLeod is a native of Geneva!

In 2025, Gli Angeli Genève released “The Complete Chorale Cantatas”: nineteen CDs packaged together in a tastefully and thoughtfully designed cardboard album, with two paperback books, one with all the tracks and texts, the other with all the program notes. Both books have most of the information in English, German, and French. The only place an English translation is missing is in the cantata texts. Those only have French translations.

It’s of course not just this collection’s design that makes it an exceptional release. What stands out to me most are the musical introductions to each cantata.  Each work is preceded by an organ prelude by Bach or one of his contemporaries on the same chorale that the cantata is based on, followed by the chorale itself, sung a capella by two or three singers. In today’s world where we listeners are not as familiar with these chorale tunes as listeners in Bach’s time were, this makes a huge difference in appreciating these cantatas.

Arp Schnittger Organ, Groningen, the Netherlands.

I applaud Gli Angeli Genève going through the extra trouble of recording these additional pieces after they had already recorded all the cantatas. The cantatas were recorded live over the course of 12 years, from 2011 to 2023, all in Geneva. The a capella chorale tunes were recorded in three different sessions spread out over 2024, in Geneva, Chaux-de-Fonds (also in Switzerland), and Groningen (the Netherlands). All the organ preludes were recorded in September 2024 on a historic organ from Bach’s time, the Arp Schnitger Organ in the Martinikerk (St. Martin’s church) in Groningen, the Netherlands. Organist Francis Jacob does a fabulous job on this beautiful instrument, and his registrations and notes for each of the pieces are included in one of the books included with the CD box.

Cantata 114 Ach, Lieben Christen, seid getrost for the 17th Sunday after Trinity

On to the cantata for this Sunday, Cantata 114 Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost, from 1724. It appears on CD 7 of Gli Angeli Genève’s “The Complete Chorale Cantatas” box. If you’re in Europe, you can purchase the box on jpc.de: you pay 160 euros instead of the original price of 200 euros. It’s also available on Amazon.de and Amazon.uk. If you’re outside of Europe you’ll have to rely on the streaming platforms. Find Cantata 114 here on Spotify, or here on YouTube (this is a playlist of the entire album (CD 7), just scroll down to the 9th track to start this cantata with the organ prelude).

Find the German texts with English translations for Cantata 114 here, and the score here. I have previously published two articles about this cantata on this blog, in 2017 and 2020. The one from 2017 includes a detailed listening guide and the one from 2020 shares a few more recordings.

Coming back to the musical introductions I mentioned above, sopranos Aleksandra Lewandowska and Sarah van Mol sing a 17th-century anonymous setting of the chorale. I love their voices together and I could listen to their a capella chorale singing all day. If you have time, check out their rendition of “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren” preceding Cantata 137 on CD 5 of this same box. Goose bumps!

However, what I love most about Gli Angeli Genève’s recording of this cantata is the opening chorus, with exquisite phrasing by the orchestra, and beautiful transparency in the chorus. The two-on-a-part singing works really well in this case!

Thomas Hobbs

Tenor Thomas Hobbs and flutist Alexis Kossenko do a terrifyingly beautiful job in the tenor aria. This is the slowest I’ve ever heard this aria performed, but again, it works. In this tempo, the “sighs” in the flute part really make me think of sobs, fitting for an illustration of “Jammertale” (vales of tears). I still also really love the J.S. Bach Foundation/Lutz’ recording with flutist Marc Hantaï and tenor Georg Poplutz. When you regard this aria’s text, Wo wird in diesem Jammertale vor meinen Geist die Zuflucht sein? (Where in this vale of tears will there be a refuge for my spirit?) I feel that Thomas Hobbs focuses more on illustrating the vale of tears, while Georg Poplutz expresses the problem of where to turn to.

But let’s not forget the soprano and alto solos! The soprano solo consists of a verse of the chorale with an exciting continuo accompaniment, performed convincingly here by sopranos Alexandra Lewandowska and Anne-Kathryn Olsen. It’s fun for me to hear Anne-Kathryn sing, because she and I chatted online during the Covid pandemic about her working in Europe as an American soprano, and about San Francisco Bay Area audiences versus European audiences (it’s not what you think). Her voice also sounds fabulous together with Alexandra Lewandowska’s, so I guess Alexandra is good at selecting fellow singers 🙂

Anne-Kathryn Olsen
Alexandra Lewandowska

Now we can all go in peace.

As almost always in a Bach cantata, there is a turning point where the text and music move from misery to glory. In this cantata this happens in the alto aria. Bach illustrates the at the same time victorious and peaceful text with a joyful orchestra accompaniment with oboe solos, beautifully played by Emmanuel Laporte, and a virtuoso part for the singer. And what better countertenor to sing this than Alex Potter? Now we can all go in peace. 

More cantatas for this 17th Sunday after Trinity

One year later, for this same 17th Sunday after Trinity, Bach wrote Cantata 148 Bringet dem Herrn Ehre seines Namens. Please find my previous posts about this cantata here. Since last year, there’s been a beautiful new recording out on Youtube, performed by the J.S. Bach Foundation under the direction of Rudolf Lutz, with two of my favorite soloists, countertenor Alex Potter and tenor Daniel Johannsen. Find it here. 

© Wieneke Gorter, September 25, 2026.

Deeply moving arias and a new video of Cantata 114

04 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Trinity

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Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) in Leipzig

This 17th Sunday after Trinity has been connected to more discoveries than any other so far for me, and I keep making new ones:

In 2016, I wrote a post about Cantata 148 Bringet dem Herrn Ehre seines Namens, then learned a lot of new information during the months that followed, which led me to completely revise the post in February 2017. It talks about Dresden concertmaster Johann Georg Pisendel and his influence on the violin solos Bach wrote in Leipzig. Read it here.

Marc Hantaï

In 2017, I realized that at least two arias Bach wrote for this Sunday make me cry, not because of the singers, but because of the instrumental solos that accompany those arias. Read it here, in a post that introduces Cantata 114 Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost. At that time, the best recording I could find was a live radio registration of a performance led by Gustav Leonhardt in 1988. All this because of the tenor aria.* I knew who the tenor was (John Elwes), but could only make an educated guess about the extraordinary flute player, probably Marc Hantaï. That recording also had my first countertenor love, Gérard Lesne, singing the alto aria.

David Erler. Photo by Björn Kowalewsky

At the last gathering of the Berkeley Bach Cantata Group I attended before the Shelter In Place started (and all rehearsals and performances stopped) here in the SF Bay Area, I got to discuss Bach’s “Pisendel style” violin solos a bit with the first violinist of that group. In an email-exchange that followed, he pointed out a countertenor he liked, but who I had never heard of before: David Erler.

Then this week, while checking if any new recordings of cantatas 148 or 114 had come out since I wrote those blog posts, I discovered to my great delight that in September 2018 the J.S. Bach Foundation recorded Cantata 114 Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost with … Marc Hantaï playing flute in the tenor aria! (I now for sure know it was him in that 1988 Leonhardt recording) and … David Erler singing the alto aria (and doing an excellent job). While it doesn’t rival the energy of the soprano solo on the Gardiner recording (for this, please read my blog post from 2017 about this cantata), nor Peter Kooij’s solo on the Leonhardt recording, it is a fabulous and very moving performance, and you can see Marc Hantaï play. Find this live video recording by the J.S. Bach foundation here on YouTube. Soloists are: David Erler, alto; Georg Poplutz, tenor; and Wolf-Matthias Friedrich, bass.

Find the German texts with English translations of Cantata 114 here, and the score here.

©Wieneke Gorter, October 4, 2020.

Read more:

In 2018, I realized that Bach reworked the incredibly moving tenor aria with flute from Cantata 114 into a faster tenor aria with oboe for Cantata 124, and that nobody else seemed to have noticed this yet. Read that here.

Read more about my first countertenor loves here.

Trombones and altos from heaven (a guide to BWV 2)

26 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in Bach's life, Cantatas, Chorale cantatas 1724/1725, Leipzig, Trinity

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Ceiling painting installed around 1700 in Christian V’s Hall in Rosenborg Castle, Denmark. Possibly by Reinhold Timm, ca. 1620, originally for for a music pavilion in Kongens Have. *

Yesterday, Wednesday March 25, 2020, the J.S. Bach Foundation published their live video recording of Cantata 2 Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein (Please God, look down from Heaven) on their YouTube channel. I thought it might be nice to provide a listening guide to go with this performance.

I love this cantata because it has trombones in the orchestra, doubling the choir parts, and because the altos have the cantus firmus (=they sing the chorale melody in long notes) in the opening chorus, which sounds incredibly good, and is unique within Bach’s writing.

Find the video recording by the J.S. Bach Foundation here on YouTube. Soloists are Alex Potter, alto; Georg Poplutz, tenor; and Markus Volpert, bass.

Find the German texts with English translations here, and the full score here.

This cantata was the second in Bach’s 1724 series of Chorale Cantatas. He most probably intended for the first four cantatas in that series to form a set, or at least to present some kind of order,  if you look at the composition form of the opening movement, and which voice has the cantus firmus of the chorale tune in that chorus:

  1. Cantata 20 O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort: French Overture, with cantus firmus in the soprano (find my blog post about this cantata here)
  2. Cantata 2 Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein: Chorale motet, cantus firmus in alto (the cantata discussed here)
  3. Cantata 7 Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam: Italian concerto, cantus firmus in tenor. (find my blog post about this cantata here)
  4. Cantata 135 : Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder: Chorale fantasia, cantus firmus in bass. (find my blog post about this cantata here)

We know that Bach liked to use order and symmetry when he wanted to impress other people with a composition. But perhaps he was also thinking of his legacy. When he started composing cantatas at the Weimar court in 1714, albeit on a monthly instead of weekly basis, his first four cantatas formed a similar portfolio of composition styles in the opening choral movements:

  1. Cantata 182 Himmelskönig, sei wilkommen: Choral fugue
  2. Cantata 12 Weinen, klagen, sorgen, zagen: Passacaglia
  3. Cantata 172 Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!: Concerto
  4. Cantata 21 Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis: Motet.

Back to this Cantata 2 Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein (Please God, look down from Heaven), and what to listen for.

Opening chorus:

The chorale, based on Psalm 12, is by Luther. For an idea what Luther’s original song would have sounded like, you can watch this video. For readers who understand German: Eduard van Hengel’s website (in Dutch) has a very insightful overview of the original German text of Psalm 12, the text of Luther’s chorale, and how Bach’s librettist changed that into the text for the cantata.  You can find it here.

When Bach uses a chorale by Luther in a cantata, he often demonstrates his reverence for the father of his faith by using the archaic form of chorale motet as opening chorus combined with the equally archaic trombone quartet (1 cornetto and 3 trombones) to double the choir parts.**

Giving the cantus firmus to the altos is however not something Bach does very often. If only he had! In this case it is especially wonderfully orchestrated, with doubling by one trombone, two oboes, and all second violins. Both on this video recording by the J.S. Bach Foundation as well on the Herreweghe audio recording I recommended back in 2017, Alex Potter’s voice significantly enhances this winning blend of alto voices and instruments, and on this J.S. Bach Foundation video recording he also sings the beautiful alto aria. It definitely made my day yesterday.

Alto aria:

Bach alto and tenor arias are at their prettiest, I find, when they are written as a trio sonata, and the alto aria Tilg, o Gott in this cantata is a beautiful example of that. Wonderful singing and playing by alto Alex Potter and violinist Renate Steinmann. The aria is a plea for help in fighting the “Rottengeister,” or the sectarians amidst the Lutherans. When the alto starts singing the word “Rottengeistern,” we realize we had heard this word already many times in the triplets of the violin part. As Eduard van Hengel says, it is the “popular easy talk of the sectarians, and that is also the reason why the other two parts don’t have this motive” [to further illustrate the schism].

Renate Steinmann, violin and Alex Potter, alto. Photo of Alex Potter by Annelies van der Vegt.

Bass recitative:

Definitely keep the text & translations handy for this one, because this movement contains a wealth of text illustrations in the music. On the word Armen  (the poor) sounds a sorrowful diminished seventh, the word seufzend (sighing) has a rest/sigh in the middle of the word, and more such things happening on the words Ach (sighing) and Klagen (complaining). In contrast to this, a few lines later, the chord on the word Gott (God) sounds open and liberating, after which God himself gets to speak, and the music turns to an arioso (similarly to how Bach does that in his much earlier Cantata 18 when God speaks). At the word heller Sonnenschein (bright sunshine) the light gets turned on in the music too: the harmony changes to C Major.

Tenor aria:

Here we have arrived at the solution/salvation part of the cantata, and so this music is more pleasant, easier to listen to. But Bach is still preaching: there are some crossing (!) lines in the music, and in the middle section, which tells the listeners to be patient (sei geduldig) and Bach stresses the words Kreuz und Not.

With many thanks to Eduard van Hengel and Rudolf Lutz for their explanations of this cantata,

Wieneke Gorter, March 26, 2020.

*more information about this painting and the other objects in Christian V’s Hall in Rosenborg Castle can be found here.

**The best examples of this are cantatas 2, 25, 38, and 121.

A good shepherd, a violoncello piccolo da spalla, and a bit of St. Matthew Passion

09 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in After Easter, Cantatas, Leipzig

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640px-meister_des_mausoleums_der_galla_placidia_in_ravenna_002
The Good Shepherd, mosaic in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, 1st half of the 5th century

There are three beautiful cantatas for this second Sunday after Easter, or “Misericordias Domini” Sunday: BWV 104, 85, and 112. Illustrating the “good shepherd” scripture for this Sunday (John 10, verse 12-16), Bach incorporated pastoral themes or orchestration in each of these cantatas.*

I’ve decided to focus on cantata 85 Ich bin ein guter Hirt, written for April 15, 1725. Of all three cantatas, this is the one I remember the best from my childhood, because of the  tenor aria “Seht, was die Liebe tut.” Also: Last week, I already mentioned the similarities between cantata 6 (for Easter Monday 1725), and cantata 42 (for the first Sunday after Easter 1725). This cantata 85 is the culmination of that “sub group” within the cantatas from 1725.

Which recording to listen to?

While I have good memories of hearing Kurth Equiluz sing the tenor aria on the Harnoncourt recording from 1977, I am enamored by Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of this cantata, and I think this is the best “overall” recording, featuring fabulous soloists Carolyn Sampson, Robin Blaze, Gerd Türk, and Peter Kooij. It is also one of the most noteworthy because of the use of a  violoncello da spalla, played by Dmitry Badiarov.

Listen to Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of cantata 85 Ich bin ein guter Hirt on Spotify. Or better yet, if you can afford to financially support the artists (especially important now, while they have no income from performances!) please consider purchasing the digital versions of Bach Collegium Japan’s recording of cantata 85 on Amazon or on iTunes.

If you prefer to watch a live recording, there is a wonderful recording available on YouTube by the J.S. Bach Foundation. Soloists are Gerlinde Sämann, soprano; Terry Wey, alto; Georg Poplutz, tenor; Markus Volpert, bass; and Martin Zeller, violoncello piccolo.

Back to the Bach Collegium Japan recording: After lovely and convincing singing by bass Peter Kooij in the opening arioso (Jesus saying “I am a good shepherd”), we get a sublime performance by countertenor Robin Blaze of the alto aria “Jesus ist ein guter Hirt,” which also features the unusual violoncello piccolo da spalla. Someone could probably write an entire PhD thesis on the difference between the  violoncello piccolo  “da spalla” (held on the shoulder, like a violin),  and the violoncello piccolo “da gamba”  (held between the legs,  like a cello), and whether Bach meant the one or the other when he wrote a part for “violoncello piccolo.”  Most recordings (Harnoncourt, Gardiner, Coin, Koopman, and J.S. Bach Foundation) feature the one held between the legs, but Bach Collegium Japan’s recording features the “da spalla” variety, played by the same person who built it in 2004, Dmitry Badiarov.

Badiarov-Dmitry-04
Dmitry Badiarov demonstrating the violoncello piccolo da spalla

Following this, we hear a radiant soprano solo chorale with oboe accompaniment (which makes me think back to the soprano solo chorale from cantata 6, in that case with the violoncello piccolo “da gamba”), beautifully sung by soprano Carolyn Sampson and expertly played by oboists Masamitsu San’nomiya and Atsuko Ozaki.

And when you didn’t think it could get any better, here comes a tenor recitative which in text and string accompaniment strongly refers to Jesus’ recitative from the St. Matthew Passion “Ich werde den Hirten schlagen, und die Schafe der Herde werden sich zerstreuen.” (Christ, having arrived at the Mount of Olives, reminds his disciples of the prophecy that the shepherd will be slain and the sheep will scatter).

With this only recitative in cantata 85, Bach has gotten everyone’s attention, so now we’re ready for the jewel in the crown of this cantata: the tenor aria “Seht, was die Liebe tut.” It is one of the most lyrical and lovely among all Bach’s tenor arias.

Seht, was die Liebe tut.
See, what love does.
Mein Jesus hält in guter Hut
My Jesus in his own safekeeping
Die Seinen feste eingeschlossen
keeps those who are his own firmly enclosed
Und hat am Kreuzesstamm vergossen
and on the beam of the cross he has shed
Für sie sein teures Blut.
for them his own precious blood.

Again there is a strong association with the St. Matthew Passion both in text and music. In his book Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven Gardiner makes a very convincing case for his theory that Bach had wanted to perform the St. Matthew Passion on Good Friday 1725, only one year after the St. John Pasion. This didn’t happen because either the council disapproved, or Bach wasn’t ready composing the piece. If Bach had indeed been working on the St. Matthew Passion before Easter 1725, it is no wonder we’re getting glimpses of that monumental work in his cantatas after Easter 1725.

Wieneke Gorter, April 9, 2016, updated April 26, 2020

*I wrote about Cantata 104 for the Second Sunday after Easter in 1724 in this blog post.