a fine reconstruction of the second half of a concert [CPE Bach] conducted in Hamburg on Palm Sunday, 1786. So vivacious is the choral singing and orchestral playing under Hans-Chrisoph Rademann that it's a shame they did not include every work from that occasion.

Rademann and his Berlin forces make the strongest possible case for it, with fresh, athletic choral singing, playing of crackling, fizzing energy and excellent solo work...This is the finest recording of CPE’s choral masterpiece I have heard....set to be one of the discs of the CPE anniversary year.

’Vitality’ is the essential ingredient of the performances recorded here … Elizabeth Watts shapes her phrases beautifully with a sure sense of direction … thrilling stuff.

Hans-Christoph Rademann gets some splendid playing from the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and directs the performance with flair and evident empathy for the music.

There are some really sumptuous sonorities in this music and the temptation in performance must sometimes be to overplay them. That is never the case here though, as the careful balance between expression and restraint seems very well judged throughout.

Chorus and orchestra launch the work in exhilarating style, as Bach emulates his father’s trumpety celebratory style, but with Vivaldian panache...This is a glorious disc.

The three works featured here represent what C P E Bach considered his finest achievements...The arias and chorales in his Magnificat echoes his father J S Bach’s Mass in B minor, as if emphasising his lineage... rendered with grace by the Akademie Für Alte Musik Berlin.

Hans-Christoph Rademann finds eloquence in the choral music and lets the Berlin Akademie rip with edgy tone in the symphony.

The energetic and committed performances of the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin and the RIAS Kammerchor under Hans-Christoph Rademann make this music a joy to listen to ... an excellent introduction to C.P.E Bach’s work.