Johann Ludwig Bach: The Leipzig Cantatas album review – this distant cousin’s music is a remarkable discovery

This is the premiere recording of sacred cantatas by JL Bach: works preserved due to his distant cousin, JS Bach, copying them for performance. Conductor Johanna Soller brings them to sensitive and vivid life

We’ll probably never know why Johann Sebastian Bach broke off his prodigious flow of sacred cantatas in 1726 to instead perform a set of 18 by a distant third cousin, but as this revelatory four-disc set demonstrates, we should be glad he did.

Johann Ludwig Bach, born near Eisenach in 1677, became cantor and later kapellmeister in Meiningen, dying there in 1731. His music shows an inspirational gift for melody, a sensitivity to text and a knack for turning Lutheran doctrinal poetry into first-rate music drama. How JSB got his hands on JLB’s music is unclear – there’s no evidence the two ever met – but JSB’s meticulous copying out of his relative’s work has preserved a treasure trove of music that might otherwise have been lost to the sands of time.

Unbelievably, Capella Sollertia’s thoroughly idiomatic performances represent the first ever recordings of these cantatas, nearly five-and-a-half hours of music, some of which could easily pass for the work of JS Bach himself. Indeed, the Easter cantata, Denn du wirst meine Seele nicht in der Hölle lassen, was once attributed to Johann Sebastian as BWV number 15. It’s a perfect example of what JLB does best: shapely Italianate arias that trip along with a Frenchified courtly grace and are packed full of imaginative word painting. Trumpets and drums, sensitively deployed, create a vivid sense of occasion.

Johanna Soller’s conducting is incisive yet flexible, while her splendid lineup of fresh-voiced soloists basks in sumptuous sound thanks to Ricercar’s scrupulous engineering. A remarkable rediscovery, warmly recommended.

Stream it on Apple Music (above) or on Spotify