Although less widely celebrated than in past ages, the Feast of the Ascension is still a major festival in the calendar of the Christian church. Falling on the Thursday forty days after Easter (and ten before Whitsun/Pentecost), it marks the ascension into heaven of Jesus Christ following several post-Resurrection appearances to his disciples. Its joyful, triumphant mood has lent itself to celebrated works of graphic art, but also to some glorious music down the years, from early liturgical chant to Messiaen’s 1930s orchestral work L'Ascension. In the Protestant church of the Baroque period the Ascension was celebrated with particular splendour, as is vividly demonstrated on the latest disc from Lionel Meunier’s vocal consort Vox Luminus.

On this Alpha album, entitled simply ‘Himmelfahrt’ (the German word for Ascension), Vox Luminus teams up – as they had so successfully for their 2021 disc of Biber’s Requiem – with the Freiburger Barockorchester, bringing their joint expertise to bear in a thrilling programme of cantatas by Bach and Telemann. The programme kicks off with Bach’s best-known work for Ascensiontide, the Ascension Oratorio, BWV 11. This is a two-part work (performed either side of the sermon) which sets the biblical Ascension narrative from the Acts of the Apostles narrated by a tenor evangelist, framing it with a chorus, arias and chorales. It was probably first performed on 15 May 1738, and its opening chorus and two arias are based on music from two secular cantatas – similar to the compositional technique employed in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B minor.

The opening chorus is a particularly joyous one, with trumpets, timpani and flutes as well as oboes and strings all adding to the celebratory atmosphere. The choir of four voices per part is agile enough to cope with a wonderfully brisk tempo, and although they are outnumbered by instrumentalists, the balance achieved in the sympathetic acoustic of Gönningen’s Evangelische Kirche Peter und Paul is well-nigh perfect, the performance positively brimming over with enthusiasm. Tenor Raphael Höhn is a clear-voiced and engaging Evangelist, the narrative thoughtfully conveyed.

At the heart of this work are two arias (the first for alto, the second for soprano) and a four-voice chorale setting with colla parte instruments. The first aria – its music familiar in a still later guise as the Agnus Dei of the Mass in B minor – is sung with pure tone but great feeling by countertenor Alexander Chance. The central chorale (to the same melody as ‘Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht’ from the Christmas Oratorio) is performed with a more ‘veiled’ feel than on some rival accounts, suggesting that a great mystery has just been witnessed, not just by the apostles but by contemporary believers too.

The Oratorio’s penultimate movement is a soprano aria with the accompaniment of just unison flutes, an oboe and unison upper strings. The absence of a continuo bass line brilliantly conveys the ethereal nature of Christ’s heavenward journey, as does the marvellously pure timbre of Szuszi Tóth’s soprano. This rapt atmosphere is succeeded by the ebullience of the closing chorale, an elaborate major-key setting of a tune more usually heard in the minor mode (another parallel with the Christmas Oratorio).

Thirteen years previously, as part of his second annual cycle of cantatas, Bach had set a text by the Leipzig poet Christiana Mariana Ziegler as Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein, BWV 128. Here the festive element in the scoring is a pair of athletically-demanding horns, superbly played by Bart Aerbeydt and Gerard Serrano Garcia in the effervescent opening chorus, again taken at a nice brisk tempo. At more than ten minutes shorter than the Oratorio, this is an altogether more compact work, but it nevertheless makes a lasting impression. This is not least because of the magnificent central aria, for bass (Sebastian Myrus), solo trumpet (Jaroslav Rouček), strings and continuo: with an interpolated recitative the text of which may have been added by Bach himself, this is one of the composer’s finest arias for bass, and Myrus and his colleagues rise splendidly to the occasion. Following this, one of those mesmerising Bach duets where voices entwine, here Raphael Höhn and countertenor William Shelton, following which a ‘simple’ closing chorale is given a festive edge with the return of the horns.

Separating the two Bach works is a premiere recording of one of Telemann’s many Ascension Day cantatas (he wrote more than thirty, compared with Bach’s more modest four!). Dating from 1721 and the closing months of Telemann’s tenure in Frankfurt-am-Main before moving to Hamburg, Ich fahre auf zu meinem Vater, TWV 1:825, is a reminder of Telemann’s pre-eminence as the leading tone-painter of the late Baroque. Darting upward scales accompany Christ’s opening words before the chorus proper joins in, and full-throated horns again impart a jubilant atmosphere to complement the agile choral singing.

The three arias are absolutely enthralling. The first is for soprano, with accompanying strings and a pair of recorders, one of which is played by Meunier himself, as well as singing bass in the choruses and assuming overall direction; pizzicato interjections and muted passages suggest the muffled chime of funeral bells as the soul (the radiant soprano of Viola Blanche) joyfully anticipates death. The gloriously forthright central tenor aria uses lively strings and raucous horns to suggest a sea voyage, while the penultimate countertenor aria (sung by Shelton) is a dreamy siciliana with melancholy recorders and strings. The closing chorus has a devotional feeling that is disarming in its directness. This is a quite remarkable work, and even if you have existing recordings of the Bach pieces, you’ll want to hear this disc for the Telemann, as well as for the uninhibited infectiousness of all the performances. With Ascension Day falling on 9 May this year, there’s ample time to get a copy in!