Music: Pick of the New IPs

Bach: Cantatas, Vol. 1, Nos. 1 to 4; Vol. 2, Nos. 5 to 8 (Telefunken/ Das Alte Werk; 2 LPs each; $11.90). The start of something big—a project to record all 200 (or is it 247, or 295?) of Bach's cantatas by the eve of his tricentennial in 1985. The New York mail-order house Musical Heritage Society is already embarked on a similar project. It will have to go some to surpass these Telefunken performers—Vienna's Concentus Musicus (Nos. 1-6) and Amsterdam's (Gustav) Leonhardt-Consort (7-8). The approach here is enthusiastically scholarly, using boys for...