Pantomime villains | Oxford Bach Soloists

In the lead up to Lent, we discover three cantatas based on parables: Cantata 144, based on the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, reveals an alto aria with a sustained melody of great beauty; and Cantatas 181 and 18, both based on the Parable of the Sower, projecting dramatic scenes of spasmodic birds pecking at the scattered seed, and a furious litany in which Bach rains fire and brimstone on the ‘pantomime villains, the Turks and the Papists’.