Belgian conductor Philippe Pierlot has a wonderfully winning way with the music of J.S. Bach. On Soli Deo Gloria, he turns his attention to two of Bach’s numerous church cantatas. Both performances have an attractively luminous quality that is, of course, a Pierlot hallmark. Cantata No. 21, from Bach’s Weimar period in the early 1700s, is poised and beautifully unfolded, while the later Cantata No. 76—written a week after Bach took up the post of Cantor in Leipzig in 1723—is a thing of glory. (Clearly meant to make a mark, it launched Bach’s first cantata cycle.) Superb choral work and some very fine soloists make this an album to treasure.