None of the five cantatas on the BIS release extends beyond a quarter of an hour and yet the wealth of material is brilliantly compressed in a manner which followers of Bach’s chorale cantata Jahrgang, his second cycle from Trinity 1724, would have come to expect. Before the following Easter, the composer had abandoned the cycle – at least partly, one imagines, as a result of some upset with the church authorities – and resumed with the conventional model where the music takes the gospel as catalyst for poetic inspiration.

Vol 39 from Masaaki Suzuki introduces us initially to the outstanding Whit Monday cantata, BWV68, Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt (“God so loved the world”) in a performance of uncharacteristically ruddy complexion by Collegium Bach Japan. The siciliana rhythm is elegantly turned here but lacks the intensity of Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s performance (SDG, 8/06). Likewise, the bubbling radiance of “Mein gläubiges Herze” (“My heart ever faithful”, as early English arrangers have known it) is short of the genial joie de vivre which Agnes Giebel famously brings to Fritz Werner’s performance (Erato, 1/05).

If the texts of Marianne von Ziegler for BWV68, 175 and 183 (sadly, she collaborated with Bach on only nine works) afford a special luminosity of imagery which Bach clearly found profoundly arresting, Suzuki is equally committed to Neumeister’s effervescent representation of God’s gifts of the past year in the Christmas Cantata Gottlob! , BWV28. After Carolyn Sampson’s authoritative opening aria (though she’s not as well recorded as in previous volumes), the great motet movement on the chorale, “Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren”, finds a happy balance between textural refinement and declamatory zeal.

These are, indeed, fine performances with notable contributions from all the soloists (and obbligato instruments – apart from some laboured violoncello piccolo playing in BWV183, albeit played on the shoulder, “da spalla”), though no single one falls into that special category where an association between work and performer is formed for instant recall.

Ton Koopman’s cantata series, now completed, is an inconsistent document full of both outstanding elements and missed opportunities. This reissue of four Ascension cantatas is unsurprisingly therefore a mixed bag. The so-called Ascension Oratorio (BWV11) fails to reach the heavens but the choral work is always magnificently full, vital and responsive, and the best from Christoph Prégardien in BWV43 is exceptional. The most striking performance here, by a mile, is the delectable and little-known Wer da glaubet, BWV37, which appeared originally in Vol 9 – one of the most distinguished examples from the complete set: better value than this compilation, unless you feel compelled to enjoy the elevated mysteries of Ascension in a single sitting.