JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Cantatas ("Dialogkantaten") BWV 32, 49 & 57 Sophie Karthäuser, Michael Volle, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Raphaël Alpermann

Exquisite dialogue
The church cantata very quickly came to occupy a privileged place in Bach’s output, but it was in his Leipzig period that he explored new stylistic possibilities for the genre in several cycles. The third of these, mostly scored for relatively small forces, features in these Dialogkantaten three fine examples of the ‘madrigalian’ type: in their arias, recitatives and chorales, the composer deploys a poetry that does not exclude audacity and an eloquence worthy of opera. These fervent musical conversations are here conducted con brio thanks to the rapport between two singers as moving as they are inspired.