Stuttgart’s distinguished Bach credentials in the post war years were largely built on the twin pillars of Karl Münchinger and Helmuth Rilling, and a few lesser-known figures who paved the way for early recordings of the composer’s vocal music. But it was Rilling’s gradual conglomeration of ensembles and festivals, leading to a complete set of cantata recordings, that confirmed his place as an international Bach director. Tight and gripped ensemble, often with exceptional soloists, garnered as much admiration as a sense of frustration with the shortage of flexibility and warmth. Under the same label as Rilling, Hänssler is now celebrating a fresh vision, that of Hans Christoph Rademann, Rilling’s successor from 2013 as director of the Gaechinger Cantorey.

‘Vision Bach’ is indeed how this new series of cantatas is being branded – starting with the first year of works Bach composed, in 1723, for his new employers in Leipzig (a tercentenary project if there ever was one). Bach put down a strong marker in those first weeks with Cantatas Nos 75 and 76 (both are very significant bipartite works with impressive rhetorical and technical ambitions), and Rademann acknowledges this with his own particular stamp. Consistently well considered and evenly voiced, he offers a mainstream ‘period’ approach distinct from Rilling who, unlike Rademann, used modern instruments.

Resonances of an established Stuttgart house style are however still in evidence. With the aforementioned cantatas and the stellar Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis (No 21) – a previous work from Weimar which Bach knew ticked every box – the playing and singing are straightforward and poised, stripped of all mannerism, with each aria progressing expertly under Rademann’s watchful direction. The gleaming choruses reveal an easy rapport between the tidy chamber chorus, with its step-out soloists, and a confidently stylish orchestra.

It is hard these days to speak of national or even regional trends in Bach performance but Gaechinger Cantorey draw on well-established palettes of sound and identifiable reflexes that seem more strongly representative than interpretative. While there is some real flair and drama in No 76, the general scope and shape of the performances is more hospitable than seriously inquisitive. The solo singing is excellent – for example, Miriam Feuersinger’s affecting anguish in ‘Seufzer, Tränen’ from No 21 – but on the whole the music and text don’t entwine enough to bring the singular rhetorical surprise and beauty of conception in, say, the Herreweghe vein. These are assiduously prepared performances for those who like their Bach to be skilfully framed and slightly middle-of-the-road.