Sacred and playful.
darragh o'donoghue | 04/11/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Bach's 'Magnificat' is one of his most famous works, its relatively familiar format - huge opening chorus, two arias, two duets and two recitatives - made exhilarating by choral writing as architecturally, accumulatively intricate as that for the instruments. Rotzsch's pacing is superb, alive to nuance and texture, but the overproduction typical of the period (1978) can make it sound distractingly artificial.Much more enjoyable is the less familiar cantata, BWV 10. Though a sacred, Marian piece, it is one of Bach's more playful, with a thrilling, layered chorus followed by a gorgeous extended soprano aria based on a Brandenburg concerto, followed by an oom-pah tenor aria with the organ boucing away like the lightest violin. And so on. A welcome surprise."