Bach. Wedding cantatas.

Emma Kirkby. The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, DECCA

It has long been and, apparently, correctly noted that people get the greatest pleasure from the simplest things. In “Wedding Cantatas” there is only a little instrumental sound, which slightly “colors” one pure soprano. There is also the infallible reputation of the “angelic voice” and the confidence of many listeners that a living person cannot sing like that - but he sings... It turned out that with a sound that does not even reach an average volume level, many sound “steps” fit " - from 10 pianos to one... half-piano: from a lonely call in the void to a funny aspiration or a slowly melting long note.

In the space between the tremulously tinkling harpsichord and Emma Kirkby's voice seemingly dissolving into thin air, there is something like a shadow theater. A huge labyrinth of musical and semantic subtleties: invisible spirits, the desire expressed in the form of a light lullaby to quickly leave the world in order to finally see Jesus Christ (such is the Lutheran wedding cantata “I’ve had enough” - Ich habe genug).

Emma Kirkby sings flexibly and slightly carelessly, in a half-whisper, but her performance is no less clear than singing in full voice... Even where there are real coloraturas and “branchy” vocal difficulties, clearly designed for a “big” voice, they sound easy and without effort. Harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood and the musicians of his ensemble The Academy of Ancient Music do not so much accompany as “serve” the singer, like the well-trained staff of a five-star hotel. But the entire instrumental fabric can also be heard quite clearly - only its weight is deliberately lightened almost to zero: in a special sense, they made Bach a “minimalist”. Or rather, a “holy beggar,” almost Francis of Assisi, who is not sorry to part with anything except one vocal line and a few German words.