J.s. Bach Violin Concertos

The Gemini Series features an impressive roster of singers, conductors, soloists, and ensembles of international renown, all from the incomparable EMI Classics stable. EMI's rich legacy of recording expertise comes to the fore in performances from the 1960s to the 1990s. Gemini titles are predominantly collections of single composers and fantastic value with well over an hour of music on each CD, making them the ideal place to start or develop a collection of classical music. Each 2-CD set contains over two hours of music for a fantastically low price. Attractively designed and packaged in space-saving brilliant boxes, each set includes three-language booklets with detailed notes on the music.

This collection was first compiled in 1970 or so from recordings dating as far back as 1961. The set, now remastered and issued on cd, includes performances by three generations of harpsichordists, with Gustav Leonhardt providing the central focus. Leonhardt includes (in BWV 1060, 1062 and 1065) his former teacher from the Schola Cantorum in Basle, Eduard Mueller (the student modestly playing second harpsichord to his mentor in 1060 and 1065) while his own first-generation students Anneke Uittenbosch and Alan Curtis join him for BWV 1061, 1063-1065.

The violin concertos here are not the familiar pair in A minor and E. Bach composed a number of concertos for orchestral instruments and later transcribed them as keyboard concertos. Reversing Bach’s procedure, Wilfried Fischer has taken the harpsichord versions and from them has reconstructed the originals. BWV 1056 is a transposed transcription of the Keyboard Concerto in F minor (though New Grove identifies the outer movements as being from a lost oboe concerto). The D minor work is also usually heard in its keyboard adaptation. The concerto in C minor for two harpsichords appears in its original instrumentation for violin and oboe, the soloists here being perfectly balanced for clarity of line. It was Tovey who suggested that the A major concerto may have been intended for the oboe d’amore, an instrument pitched between the oboe proper and the cor anglais.

Kennedy, the violinist formerly known as Nigel Kennedy, has a well-earned reputation as the bad boy of classical music. His defiantly anti-Establishment antics anger traditionalists and tickle the rebellious. This venture into the Bach canon will confirm both camps in their views. Traditionalists will fume at such excesses as the exaggerated, ugly flourish at the end of the E Major Concerto and the supersonic speeds adopted for the Allegro movement of the two-violin Concerto among much else, including the puzzle-booklet more appropriate to a pop release. Kennedy's fans, though, will relish those elements of what is an ultimately fairly straightforward set of Bach interpretations enlivened by personal touches, a string sound that owes much to "authentic instrument" practices, and zippy speeds that make for exciting listening.

There is no shortage of good Bach violin concerto recordings, nor even of those played by historical-performance groups, yet this one has several distinct attractions. First, is simply the presence of violinist Kati Debretzeni, long a violin section leader of Gardiner's English Baroque Soloists but rarely heard as a soloist in her own right. She's one of the few historical-performance specialists to have emerged from Eastern Europe, and she deserves wider exposure.

Itzhak Perlman was born in Israel in 1945 and moved to the USA in 1958, where he trained at the Juilliard School in New York. His success in winning the prestigious Leventritt Competition in 1964 launched his international career through which he has become known as one of the world's leading musicians.
Itzhak Perlman has appeared with every major orchestra and in recitals and festivals throughout the world. In November 1987 he joined the Israel Philharmonic for history-making concerts in Warsaw and Budapest, representing the first performances by this orchestra and soloist in Eastern block countries. He again made history as he joined the Israel Philharmonic for its first visit to the Soviet Union in April 1990 with concerts in Moscow and Leningrad. In recent years Perlman has continued to perform with leading orchestras in addition to touring major cities throughout the world with his accompanists Bruno Canino and Samuel Sanders. In 1996 Perlman's engagements included concerto and recital appearances throughout Europe, Asia and North America, including appearances with many of the world's foremost orchestras and composers.

Naxos has done music lovers yet another good turn by releasing these recordings (1932-36), vividly remasterd from 78s. Menuhin was in his later teens when he made them. The concertos in A minor and E are conducted by his teacher Enescu, who is the other soloist in the D minor Double concerto, which Monteux conducts. The performances are compelling, and the slow movements of the solo concertos are imprinted with that beauty of tone and phrase that makes the young Menuhin a permanent wonder. But the Double Concerto is the treasure. The soloists are indistinguishably linked yet each a consummate individual. Playing more heart-easing than in the distraught largo could not be imagined.

Standard repertoire doesn’t get any more “standard” than Bach’s concertos for violin in A minor and E major–and every violinist from minor to major has recorded them. Which means that there are about a zillion versions available, many of them first rate. Well, here’s another to add to the list, excellent performances in fine sound–sturdy, stylish, reliable, lustrous, with lively tempos and some nifty, well-integrated ornaments–all the components needed to confirm this as a worthy staple of any library. And for good measure, the program includes two concertos not usually presented as violin works but in their later incarnations as keyboard concertos.

What you will hear is a performance and recording that is not unlike 'The Stokowski Sound.' Deep, rich and firm bass line, smooth strings and lushness around. The soloists are as romantic. The second movement of the double concerto is a love duet. It has a beauty that literally arrests you.

Listening to this irresistibly joyful and magnificently musical set of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites, one is immediately struck by two thoughts. First, Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan have been wasting their time concentrating on Bach's dour cantatas, and second, Bach himself was wasting his time writing his melancholy church music when he could have been composing infinitely more cheerful secular music. While Suzuki and his crew have turned in superlatively performed, if spectacularly severe recording of the cantatas, they sound just as virtuosic and vastly more comfortable here.