# Suzuki vs Koopman .....



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

For the Bach cantatas sets, who's set do you prefer?
And why?
:tiphat:


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I'm probably the outlier here, but Suzuki doesn't do it for me; I don't quite remember exactly why. Maybe because it's a little too precise. I have several Suzuki volumes but hardly listen to them. 

On the other hand, I have no problem with Koopman other than the soprano he began the series with, Barbara Schlick. I have the first 10 volumes and would have the complete set if I had the discretionary income.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Manxfeeder said:


> I'm probably the outlier here, but Suzuki doesn't do it for me; I don't quite remember exactly why. Maybe because it's a little too precise. I have several Suzuki volumes but hardly listen to them.
> 
> On the other hand, I have no problem with Koopman other than the soprano he began the series with, Barbara Schlick. I have the first 10 volumes and would have the complete set if I had the discretionary income.


I'll have to disagree about Schlick; nobody does misery better than her.

Concerning the main topic, I'm not a big fan of Mr. Koopman - he and I don't see Bach in the same light. As for Suzuki, he's one of my top three Bach conductors along with Gardiner and Herreweghe.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

deleted sorry, my entry wasn't sufficiently about Bach


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Bulldog said:


> As for Suzuki, he's one of my top three Bach conductors along with Gardiner and Herreweghe.


One thing in Suzuki's favor, he believes what he is conducting.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Either set would be enough for a lifetime of rich musical exploration with performances of consistent quality. There is nothing really bad about either of them, and I greatly admire both conductors, but if pressed I go with Koopman because of one deciding factor - soloists. He has a great, diverse team of experienced singers who rarely let down the side (and his use of countertenors is fairly rare, which makes him an anomaly among period conductors). While Suzuki has some stellar soloists - Carolyn Sampson, Yoshikazu Mera, and Hana Blazikova are consistently fantastic - I really can’t stand some of his regular mainstays like Peter Kooij and Yukari Nonoshita, and Robin Blaze and Gerd Türk can grate after a while. I very much like Suzuki’s breezy, lithe conducting with plenty of attention given to the theological weight when due, but I sympathize with those who find him a bit cool. Koopman’s conducting is more homogeneous and his rhythms pretty square, and he often uses a chamber organ that makes an extremely annoying clicking sound (really only a problem on headphones) but as voices are important to me I give him the edge. However, if you aren’t an HIP partisan, I really do think Rilling is the best overall set for quality of singing, playing, and expression.


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

One of the main differences is that Koopman generally opts for an oversized choir--since he's usually, but not always, in the Gardiner, Leonhardt, Herreweghe camp as far as preferring a much larger choir than would have been used OR COMPOSED FOR in Lutheran Germany (in the music of Bach, Buxtehude, Telemann, etc.). Indeed, unlike the St. Matthew Passion & Mass in B minor, Bach didn't compose any of his cantatas for a double choir--they're all 4 part works, except for one fragment that some scholars don't consider authentic. Which is why the choral singing can sound too homogenous on Koopman's recordings, as ACB points out. While Suzuki generally opts for a smaller, more medium sized choir--though not a one-voice-to-a-part choir--and therefore, yes, his performances are more lithe & the music lines more contrapuntally clear, as ACB likewise points out.

And yet!, I'd have to say that, as performances, I've tended to enjoy Koopman's survey a bit more (though I've definitely preferred Suzuki in the Mass in B minor...)

But neither cycle is a top favorite of mine, overall. Rather, IMO, Eric Milnes & Montreal Baroque are better in their ongoing Cantata cycle than either Koopman & Suzuki, in my estimation, and Milnes consistently chooses his solo singers more astutely than everyone else, too (such as soprano Monica Mauch, who has become one of my favorite Bach sopranos ever! right up there with Arleen Auger, Elly Ameling, & Janet Baker). But then, he has to, because his four soloists also sing the choral parts, as well, & therefore, they're left a lot more exposed...

I also tend to prefer Philippe Pierlot's Bach Cantata recordings with the Ricercar Consort. So yes, I prefer one-voice-to-part choirs in Bach's weekly cantatas, which not only work better in this music, IMO, but are more authentic (although I'm okay with Suzuki's medium sized choir, too).

Like Bulldog, I can't agree about soprano Barbara Schlick, either. I've enjoyed her a lot in Herreweghe's recording of Bach's Magnificat, since I thought she sang the "Quia respexit humiltatem" exceptionally well, & better than most others I've heard sing this movement:


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Josquin, I'd be interested to hear some of the scholarship on the "historical correctness" of OVPP choirs for Bach's cantatas. I do find such research into "correctness" to be fascinating and helpful even if it ultimately isn't a deciding factor in my preferences for recordings. Personally, it's hard for me to imagine the great choruses of such works as BWV 101, 19, 34, and 80 (although, to be fair, the latter was a "festival" cantata for Reformation Day for which a particularly large choir may have been available) being specifically written for OVPP but I'd be glad to be proven wrong on this. I do like OVPP for some cantatas because it helps me to appreciate the counterpoint and offers a through-and-through "chamber" style that it's refreshing to hear for certain works - there is something neat, fulfilling, and aesthetically satisfying about hearing all of the solo voices coalesce for the final chorale. I have read that, for instance, in such works as BWV 9 and 177; the very sparse, precisely-balanced scoring is in argument in favor of OVPP because the orchestra is virtually of equal prominence with the voices - a problem that can only be navigated with larger choirs by augmenting the orchestra. Ultimately though, I am pretty hopeless when it comes to evaluating cantata recordings because I love the music so much and fully enjoy everything from Kuijken's very sensitive OVPP approach to Rilling's booming, old-fashioned large choir (though I'm sorry, but I just can't do the overblown shouting of Karl Richter's massive choir and his sludgy conducting).

Edit: I've started this thread for general discussion of Bach recordings if we want to continue the conversation there rather than derailing Itullian's thread.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Josquin13 said:


> One of the main differences is that Koopman generally opts for an oversized choir--since he's usually, but not always, in the Gardiner, Leonhardt, Herreweghe camp as far as preferring a much larger choir than would have been used OR COMPOSED FOR in Lutheran Germany (in the music of Bach, Buxtehude, Telemann, etc.). Indeed, unlike the St. Matthew Passion & Mass in B minor, Bach didn't compose any of his cantatas for a double choir--they're all 4 part works, except for one fragment that some scholars don't consider authentic. Which is why the choral singing can sound too homogenous on Koopman's recordings, as ACB points out. While Suzuki generally opts for a smaller, more medium sized choir--though not a one-voice-to-a-part choir--and therefore, yes, his performances are more lithe & the music lines more contrapuntally clear, as ACB likewise points out.
> 
> And yet!, I'd have to say that, as performances, I've tended to enjoy Koopman's survey a bit more (though I've definitely preferred Suzuki in the Mass in B minor...)
> 
> ...


Thanks. For several years now, most of my Sundays have begun with Cantatas from the Kuijken.set. But I just made a Tidal playlist of the eight available albums from Montreal Baroque. I will start listening this Sunday.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Barbara Schlick was born in 1943. It would not be surprising for her to have been in fresher voice in the 1980s than in the late 1990s or early 2000s. I like the Magnificat with Herreweghe as well as her contributions to other recordings in the late 1980s and early 1990s a lot.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

Kreisler jr said:


> Barbara Schlick was born in 1943. It would not be surprising for her to have been in fresher voice in the 1980s than in the late 1990s or early 2000s. I like the Magnificat with Herreweghe as well as her contributions to other recordings in the late 1980s and early 1990s a lot.


I heard her live a few times around 1985-1987 and she was a very good Bach singer indeed, both 'in the studio' and in concert.

IIRC, after those first volumes, Koopman himself told a Dutch newspaper or magazine that Schlick, whom he had always admired a lot, was having difficulties with the higher pitch for the Mühlhausen and Weimar cantatas. (Koopman did them in choir pitch instead of chamber pitch.)
Therefore he switched to his 'own' sopranos and, after that, kept on working with younger singers indeed.


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

My favorite is Karl Richter's set, though his interpretation does not fit modern HIP-influenced audience well.


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