Johann Kuhnau – Bach’s immediate predecessor as Thomaskantor – in an 8-CD box that offers more than a mere collection of works: the individually issued recordings from 2013 to 2022 by Opella Musica, camerata lipsiensis, and Gregor Meyer are brought together as a complete sacred corpus with editorial coherence, making audible how Leipzig’s church music takes shape at the threshold of the eighteenth century and beyond. From intimate, chamber-scaled pieces to representative festive compositions, one can trace how compositional technique, the relationship between voices and instruments, and the overall sonic architecture gain definition in the early decades of the eighteenth century – a sounding point of reference for what Bach would later adopt and develop in Leipzig.