Gustav Leonhardt’s Bach cantata recordings: project, reception and style

Working together between 1970 and 1989, Gustav Leonhardt and Nikolaus Harnoncourt created a musical monument that rapidly became an emblem of the entire early music movement: a recording of J. S. Bach’s complete cantatas for Das Alte Werk. This pioneering project, for which the two men jointly received the Erasmus Prize in 1980, gained renown for its uncompromising musical choices—of which the use of treble voices was the most striking—as well as for the difference in musical approaches between the two conductors, which they themselves attributed to ‘differences of character only’. In fact, Harnoncourt’s recordings provide important material for comparison, enabling a clearer evaluation of Leonhardt’s approach to the cantatas. Additional insights can be gained from the accounts of those who performed under Leonhardt’s direction. And finally, these recordings must be placed in the context of Leonhardt’s unique career as an organist, conductor, teacher, transcriber and, of course, harpsichordist.