We’ll per chance never know why Johann Sebastian Bach broke off his prodigious creep with the circulation of sacred cantatas in 1726 to as a change obtain a living of 18 by a some distance-off third cousin, nonetheless as this revelatory four-disc living demonstrates, we needs to thrill in he did.

Johann Ludwig Bach, born shut to Eisenach in 1677, grew to become cantor and later kapellmeister in Meiningen, dying there in 1731. His tune reveals an inspirational gift for melody, a sensitivity to textual hiss and a knack for turning Lutheran doctrinal poetry into first-fee tune drama. How JSB bought his hands on JLB’s tune is unclear – there’s no evidence the two ever met – nonetheless JSB’s meticulous copying out of his relative’s work has preserved a fancy trove of tune that might well maybe maybe furthermore in some other case had been lost to the sands of time.

Unbelievably, Capella Sollertia’s thoroughly idiomatic performances signify the important thing ever recordings of these cantatas, nearly 5-and-a-half of hours of tune, about a of which might well maybe maybe simply creep for the work of JS Bach himself. Certainly, the Easter cantata, Denn du wirst meine Seele nicht in der Hölle lassen, was as soon as attributed to Johann Sebastian as BWV number 15. It’s a supreme instance of what JLB does entirely: ravishing Italianate arias that time out alongside with a Frenchified courtly grace and are packed chubby of imaginative observe painting. Trumpets and drums, sensitively deployed, invent a bright sense of occasion.

Johanna Soller’s conducting is incisive yet flexible, while her excellent lineup of new-voiced soloists basks in sumptuous sound attributable to Ricercar’s scrupulous engineering. A excellent rediscovery, warmly instructed.

Scuttle it on Apple Tune (above) or on Spotify