Solo Cantatas

"Fink's velvet-timbred mezzo evokes to perfection the consoling sentiment of Bach's alto arias. Vergnügte Ruh has long been a favourite of star mezzos and countertenors, but Fink sings with an artless humility, with eloquent yet never overemphatic German, which is not only balm to the ear, but deeply moving. The other two cantatas may be less well known, but they each contain sublime arias, with elaborate instrumental embroidery superbly supplied by the Freiburg soloists. Unmissable."
(The Sunday Times)

"Treating the organ as a concerto soloist is innovative and performed vivaciously here on a freshly voiced chamber instrument. In many of the unusual long solo arias, Argentine mezzo Bernarda Fink shows her class. In the toughest (track 10), she waves through complex floridity, awkward leeps and long phrases with totally assured refinement." (Ian Dando, The Listener)

In 1726 Bach entered a new period of creative innovation in Leipzig: renouncing the chorus, he built up a constant dialogue between solo arias and finely sculpted instrumental parts.

The three cantatas presented here represent the culmination of this development, and have established their place as a peak of the recorded repertoire.