Magnificat BWV243 / Cantata 'Ich habe genug' BWV82

"These are really marvellous recordings... the music is fluid and uplifting"
- Manchester Evening News (U.K.)

"The Naxos performance is strikingly fresh"
- Penguin Guide

These works both received their first performances in Leipzig - the Magnificat in 1723 and Cantata 82 in 1727. It was in 1723 that Bach had taken up the post of Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, having previously been Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold in Cöthen. The Magnificat was originally heard in a version in E flat major at Christmas Vespers when movements with seasonal texts were inserted; the version included on this disc was rendered by Bach some years later, returning to the ordinary Magnificat text in order to make the work performable all year round. Bach's approach to the evening canticle is characteristically large-scale. There is no use of recitative, owing perhaps to the poetic nature of the text: the verses have little natural hierarchy and it is appropriate that they should all be afforded extended settings. The scoring is unusually rich and includes three trumpets, two flutes, two oboes, strings, continuo, and timpani - one of the largest ensembles to be assembled at the Thomaskirche in Bach's time. Bach takes a literal view of the text in which, for instance, the full five-part choir is used to demonstrate Omnes generationes (" All generations") with soloists used for the more reflective movements. In a typically Bachian gesture the opening material returns for Sicut erat in principio (" As it was in the beginning").