J.S. Bach BWV 28 Aria Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende

Although of modest proportions and much less popular, it has its inner beauty, with charming opening aria for soprano, a majestic motet-like chorus, a pleasant arioso for bass, a fine recitative for tenor, an attractive duet for alto and tenor, and concluding chorale with full instrumentation. Harnoncourt (Boy Soprano Soloist): The same problem that plagued Friesenhausen (in the Werner recording) with her voice continually faces Harnoncourt in the choice of his oboists throughout the entire cantata series: slow vibratos with shaky intonation. This creates unsteadiness and uncertainty regarding pitch which can even carry over to the vocalist. In the bc, Harnoncourt uses a bassoon (to match the oboe sound) and possibly a very discreetly played organ (Tachezi?) This continuo and the rest of the orchestra seem to be delicately handled until the soprano loses considerable volume into the low range. At that point the orchestra covers up the voice by not playing more softly. To his credit, this boy soprano far outshines the efforts of the preceding two sopranos who also did little or nothing to bring expression into the text. This boy is equally concerned about getting all the notes right, but at least he is secure about the notes he sings as he confidently trumpets these notes with great strength and facility. Again, discounting certain aspects in Harnoncourts accompaniment, it is possible for a listener to get a fairly good idea of how such an aria using a boy soprano in an aria might have sounded in Bach's time.