Ton Koopman’s Bach cantata series was set to complete well before Masaaki Suzuki’s, each Erato release containing three discs, leaving BIS to follow a more stately pace and perhaps encouraging a more circumspect approach from the Japanese Bachians. As Warner has now abandoned the hare-like Amsterdamers (one dearly hopes that a new company will take on the mantle for the remaining cantatas), the tortoises quietly go on producing highly polished and considered performances as they survey the post-Easter cantatas of Leipzig of 1724.

The first work on the CD is a little-known gem, No 86, Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch (‘Verily, I say unto you’). Succinct and imploring, the listener follows the doctrinal and attentive tone set so marvellously by a composer arrested by the intensity of Christ’s promise: ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.’ Suzuki, as ever, chooses exceptionally well-judged tempi throughout, leaves no stone unturned in his confident preparedness and also introduces a fine new bass to the series, Stephan MacLeod, as the ‘vox Christi’.

Of the other three works here, none is particularly long but each contains a central movement of special significance. In No 37, it is the chorale duet of a stanza from ‘How brightly shines the morning star’, sung with disarming fluency by Yukari Nonoshita and Robin Blaze, and in No 166, the tidy tenor Makoto Sakurada gives a sensitive, if somewhat under-nourished account of ‘Ich will an den Himmel denken’. This cantata also boasts a ravishing and peerless ‘Man nehme sich in Acht’ from Blaze, accompanied generously by the strings.

The only cantata here which appears constantly embedded in the given imagery of its text is No 104 Du Hirte Israel. Psalm 80 inspires Bach’s alluring pastoral backdrop, initially realised in a rocking triple-time chorus to convey the shepherd ‘that leadest Joseph like a flock’. Neither Suzuki nor Koopman quite explore the range of possibilities, and not just in terms of tempo or texture but in seeking expression through character of sound. Koopman seems strangely diffident while the squeaky clean chorus of Bach Collegium Japan convey little of the sombre gravitas in this bucolic masterpiece.

Ground is certainly made up in the great bass aria ‘Beglückte Herde’, where MacLeod gives a gentle and soft-grained performance (very much in the spirit of Suzuki’s usual bass, Peter Kooij) as Christ’s sheep are offered the rewards of faith. Some will wish for a more involving performance of this highly original work, as Richter provides (from 1973) – with a majestic Fischer-Dieskau – and the radiant spontaneity of Pieter Jan Leusink, which arguably boasts the best bass singing in recent years from Bas Ramselaar.

Suzuki’s latest volume will, however, satisfy a good number of tastes. These are consistently impressive performances, beautifully recorded and Suzuki communicates Bach with unalloyed joy. Only in the heady luminosity of it all does one sometimes yearn for a broader range of expressive ambitions.