A Special Pleasure Masaaki Suzuki directs J S Bach cantatas - reviewed by ROBERT ANDERSON 'If the Japanese tempo is faster than mine, so be it ...'

Globalisation, we are told, is bad for the whimpering poor; but then the poor -- and this we have on the highest authority -- will be always with us. So let us rejoice that the Bach who confined his movements to a restricted number of German-speaking districts is now free to wander globe and ether at will. Suzuki is a Japanese name to conjure with, and the basis of this cantata set is Japanese. Were the five cantatas recorded in a pagoda? Of course not. They are appropriately domiciled in the neo-Gothic chapel of Shoin Women's University.

The five cantatas date probably from 1725 and are as varied in their moods and instrumentation as one has come to expect. A special pleasure is to find the soprano aria 'My heart ever faithful' near the outset, import from an earlier secular work. If the Japanese tempo is faster than mine, so be it; Carolyn Sampson copes with traditional English aplomb.

The grandest choral movement of this set is the final number of cantata 68, when the cornetto and trombones of the Concerto Palatino come fully into their own, commending believers and condemning unbelief.

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