Plea: Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Alexander Armstrong
19 March 2012
Comedian Alexander Armstrong has launched a bid to help conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner complete one of the most ambitious recording cycles ever attempted in classical music.
Armstrong, 42, is calling on 2,500 other music-lovers to donate £20 each so that Sir John can finish recording all of the church cantatas written by Johann Sebastian Bach.
The London-based conductor has so far issued 27 two-CD volumes of the 200 cantatas performed by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists.
They were all recorded in 2000, but problems with noise in Salisbury Cathedral rendered the recording of the four cantatas for Ascension Day impossible.
The aim is to complete the set in the church of St Giles, Cripplegate, in London on May 10.
