Thirty years on from their acclaimed recording for Erato, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir return to the Bach Motets in a new SDG recording, taken from a concert in London in 2011 at the end of a tour which saw performances in Italy, France, The Netherlands and Germany.

The Motets can be seen as some of Bach’s most perfect and hypnotic compositions. Through their extraordinary complexity and density, they require exceptional virtuosity and sensitivity from all the performers.

Each of them is endlessly fascinating, and each inhabits its own sound world, Bach's masterful use of canon, fugue and counterpoint, the brilliant exploitation of double-choir sonorities are perfectly matched by the Monteverdi Choir's virtuosity.

The album is packaged in a hard back book similar to our other releases. It contains 44 pages booklet with original notes by John Eliot Gardiner and texts in German, English and French.

Recorded live in London, St John’s Smith Square, 2011

“If all the world’s depressed people had somehow been squeezed into St John’s to hear this concert, the pharmaceutical companies would be out of business. Who needs pills to lift the spirits when we have the six Bach motets, and John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir to sing them?” – The Times *****

“Lightness of touch and consistent momentum – the Monteverdi Choir was on supreme form” – The Guardian *****

“Precision, purity of tone, strong rhythmic definition, clear diction ... Bach's motets are ideally suited to the Monteverdi Choir” – The Evening Standard ****