The repository of Pilgrimage cantata performances continues to appear unabated, with an increasing optimism that all the fruits of this extraordinary project will find a home in SDG's opulently presented series. Vol 15, which celebrates the Third Day of Christmas, continues the Yuletide concerts from St Bartholomew's New York (initiated in Vol 14, 1/06) and marks the penultimate event in the millennial journey.

The immediacy of these readings is what makes them stand out alongside recent studio performances which admittedly can, at best, present a more inhabited world than John Eliot Gardiner can offer in a breakneck tour. On the other hand, Gardiner and his troupe regularly make discoveries at the point of execution which resonates with veracity - especially as his players and singers are soaked in the idiom as no ensemble of musicians can have been, arguably, since Bach's time. This is wonderfully apparent in the opening chorus of No 133 where this sanguine music trips from the bows and reeds with a seasoned confidence of musicians who speak in Bach.

The Christmas cantatas indeed reveal examples of the “magic moment” in live performance, such as Gillian Keith's delectable “Süsser Trost” from No 151 and Peter Harvey's splendidly visceral rage aria “Ja, ja, ich kann die Feinde schlagen” from No 57. This is an outstanding work of near-operatic physiognomy, its essence effectively conveyed here although the performance is not vocally able to compete with Elly Ameling and Hermann Prey (for Winschermann on Philips).

The inevitable outcome in such a major logistical undertaking (of 62 concerts in a single year) is the occasional use of singers whose technical resource simply can't extend to the colour and inflection of the great Bach singers of the past. Malin Hartelius in Vol 7 is disappointingly variable in the cavernous Abbaye d'Ambronay, though Gardiner relishes the space in a graphically astringent reading of the great passacaglia-lament chorus of No 78. This is a highly original reading. The celebrated duet, “Wir eilen”, is rather too driven and one still returns to Teresa Stich-Randall and Dagmar Hermann (for Prohaska in 1954; Vanguard, 9/93) for a sense of the unalloyed and expectant joy of discipleship.

There are many riches throughout, with performances of Nos 130 and 19 which remind us that even Fritz Werner's emblazoned visions of the Archangel's decisive conquests are not exclusively his: disc two - heralded by the single-movement virtuoso “set-piece” Nun ist das Heil (No 50) - is a trompetefest and yet above all celebrates the idea of endless vigilance against the devil and Bach's musical fascination with this figure, endorsed by JEG's enthusiastic exegesis in more compelling journal notes. The high point of No 19, though, is the extraordinary tenor aria “Bleibt, ihr Engel”, a kind of enrapt recognition of a guardian angel represented by a slow, sure, soaring trumpet chorale. James Gilchrist is inspired in his elegant warmth. These are indeed resplendent new readings, chalking up another success for the Pilgrimage revisited.