Vol 35 of Masaaki Suzuki’s consistently distinguished Bach cycle takes us to May 1725 and four cantatas with commissioned texts by Leipzig poetess Mariane von Ziegler. Each of these fine works reveals Bach’s ease with the textual material, either in straightforwardly graphic responses (as in the luminescent Ascension cantata, BWV128) or the more complex interpretation, in BWV176, of the librettist’s implicitly clandestine world of Nicodemus’s seeking out Jesus, in which Bach presents an extra layer of emboldened risk.

Again, here is a volume full of Bachian gems, of most of which the Bach Collegium Japan have the measure. The Ascension cantata is uplifting and punchy; gone, one hopes, is that tendency to polish over-fastidiously. The duet between alto and tenor depicting humility at God’s omnipotence (memorably, “I see through the stars that he shows himself”) is adoringly delivered by an especially busy Robin Blaze and the vastly improved Makoto Sakurada: the tenor may not always exhibit the most shining upper register but he takes the delicious siciliano “Ich will leiden” from the brooding BWV87 with such tender sadness that one can easily imagine how judicious placement in a Dresden opera would have brought untold astonishment. The gloriously liberated imagery of BWV74 – as we battle with Satan – finds Suzuki, and in particular the fully armoured Blaze, in the most telling form.

The flamboyant Diego Fasolis presents a comparatively exhibitionist approach to the cantata genre in a thrilling (just the right side of “over the top”) account of Bach’s secular dramma per musica, BWV205, in which the winds (and Aeolus, their god) rant at being kept at bay during the summer only to be placated, eventually, by the chance to join in the name-day celebrations of a favourite Leipzig professor. It is a virtuoso serenata of remarkable colour and this visceral live performance from 2004 reminds us of the merits of a little-known, large-scale masterpiece. It is accompanied by a less engaging BWV110 but Fasolis’s Bach (notably, a fascinating St John Passion – 7/99) is well sung, open-hearted and rejoices in spontaneity.