Oh, how I wish I could have been there in person, in July 2023! At the Schlosskirche (Palace Church) of the Ludwigsburg Palace in Germany, looking up at this ceiling painting by Carlo Carlone, and hearing Bach’s incredible cantatas 105 and 46 performed by the Gaechinger Cantorey under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann.

Alas, that summer I had other things on my mind, and was pretty late catching on to Rademann’s Vision Bach, a project to record all Bach’s cantatas from his first year in Leipzig (1723/1724), in the order in which Bach wrote them. So I missed most of those live concerts, but I managed to attend one in February 2024, went to this ensemble’s St. Matthew Passion in Hamburg in March 2025, and became a fan. This June, I had the great fortune to hear two of their performances at Bachfest Leipzig. There, everyone’s energy, but especially the quality of the orchestra blew me away. I was not alone in this, festival director Michael Maul complimented the orchestra too the next day during the talkshow he co-hosted.

Rademann took over the Bach Akademie Stuttgart and the Gaechinger Cantorey from Helmut Rilling in 2013, and immediately replaced the orchestra with a period instrument ensemble. During the first three years, this happened through collaborations with Freiburger Barockorchester and Akademie Alte Musik Berlin. In 2016 Rademann founded the Bach Akademie Stuttgart’s own orchestra, also under the name Gaechinger Cantorey. And I feel you can tell that this orchestra is only 10 years young.

All 10 Volumes of Vision Bach are out now. Please scroll down on this website by Bachakademie Stuttgart to order directly from the publisher if you are in the European Union. Or visit this website, with links to order from Amazon if you are in the USA, and links for YouTube. I hope to discuss more of these Vision Bach recordings over the coming weeks and months.

For this Sunday, the 10th after Trinity, Bach wrote Cantata 46, Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgendein Schmerz sei in 1723. It appears on Vision Bach, Volume 3. You can purchase this on Amazon or Arkiv Music if you are in the USA, or on jpc if you are in Europe. Please consider purchasing, to support the artists! Also available on Spotify and YouTube.

Find the score here, and the German text with English translations here.

The recording of Cantata 46 features gorgeous singing by alto Elvira Bill and tenor Benedikt Kristjánsson, and the beautiful sound of Anneke Scott’s corno da tirarsi* in the opening chorus and closing chorale. But the absolute best is the bass aria.

We all know Bach’s illustration of thunder and lightning from his St. Matthew Passion, but he does it very well too in this apocalyptic bass aria. And this performance by Baroque trumpet player Hannes Rux-Brachtendorf and bass Matthias Winckhler (yes, that’s really five consonants in a row in the middle of his last name) is unrivaled. Especially how together they illustrate the word “unerträglich” (unbearable) in the third line of the text, it is indeed almost unbearable, it is that good! I have never heard those harmonic crunches so well done on any other recording.

Dein Wetter zog sich auf von weiten,
Doch dessen Strahl bricht endlich ein
Und muss dir unerträglich sein,
Da überhäufte Sünden
Der Rache Blitz entzünden
Und dir den Untergang bereiten.

Your tempest brewed from afar,
Yet at long last its flash breaks forth
And must be unbearable to you,
As heaped-up sins
Set aflame the lightning of vengeance
And bring about your downfall.**

Hannes Rux-Brachtendorf plays with fabulous technique and gorgeous phrasing. His playing was impressive too during Bachfest Leipzig in Cantata 51 Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen. And Matthias Winckhler — ahhhhh, he has it all, the beautiful voice, the colors, the core in the sound. And he can do it all, sing all the notes, do the colloraturas, tell the story, AND move me. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, because I observe a growing number of Lied and opera engagements on his calendar, so we might hear him less often in Bach cantatas.

When listening to this Volume 3 of Vision Bach, don’t miss the cantata this album opens with: Cantata 105 Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht for the ninth Sunday after Trinity (last week). Find the text for that cantata here. The recording features gorgeous singing by the one and only Miriam Feuersinger in the soprano aria “Wie zittern und wanken;” a five star performance by horn player Anneke Scott (again on corno da tirarsi*) and tenor Benedikt Kristjánsson in “Kann ich nur Jesum mir zum Freunde machen;” and last but not least, Matthias Winckhler in the arioso “Wohl aber dem, der seinen Bürgen weiss.” This movement always makes me think of the “Am abend da es kühle war” arioso from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and it moves me to tears.

Wieneke Gorter, © 2026.

*For more information on Anneke Scott and the corno da tirarsi, please read my blog post from 2023 here.

**English translation by Michael Marissen & Daniel R. Melamed, from https://bachcantatatexts.org/