Classics Reconsidered: Andreas Scholl’s 1997 recording of Bach cantatas
Classics Reconsidered: Andreas Scholl’s 1997 recording of Bach cantatas Mark Seow and Edward Breen revisit countertenor Andreas Scholl’s 1997 recording of Bach cantatas directed by Philippe Herreweghe MS . Cantata No.170 nearly killed me. I had been rehearsing it as an undergraduate at Cambridge with Patrick Dunachie – the current first countertenor of The King’s Singers. Stepping out onto Trinity Street in a reverie, Bach’s seemingly boundless melody still ribboning through my head, I was almost hit by a bicycle. The pure tone and silky melisma of Andreas Scholl, not yet 30 years old when he recorded this in July 1997, surely captures this ‘Himmelseintracht’ – what a word! – with a potentially unsurpassed ease. EB . My first contact with this particular recording was in London’s Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street where in 1998 I sought it out following a full-page advertisement which promised ‘This is the voice of the future’ (05/98). In those days there was a palpable hum of excitemen...
