During J.S. Bach’s time in Leipzig, the musical activity of the church during the Easter period centred around Good Friday, and consequently the Passion performance was supposed to be the musical high point of the church calendar. As the writing and preparation of this took up a sizable proportion of the composer’s efforts, he organised the music for the other services to allow him to concentrate his time to that purpose. Bach therefore made use of his earlier works on the days around Good Friday, and this CD set, compiled from the outstanding series of recordings of the cantatas made by Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir along with a fine cast of soloists, replicates the Easter programme – complete except for the Passion – that he presented during the first year of his tenure in Leipzig in 1724.  
The cantatas he used give us a cross-section of the composer’s work from his early years up to the 1720s. BWV 4, for example, is among the earliest and dates probably from 1707, whereas BWV 6 was written in Leipzig some 17 years later.

Over the course of a forty year career, Ton Koopman has developed a reputation as one of the foremost interpreters of 17th and 18th century music. His ongoing recording cycle of the complete cantatas of J. S. Bach with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, originally available on the Erato label but now released through Challenge Classics, has won him many plaudits and received amongst many other accolades a Gramophone Award and a Diapason d’Or.