Johann Sebastian Bach Brandenburg

Among the current sensations of the historical-performance scene is I Barocchisti, from Italian Switzerland, and its director and harpsichordist Diego Fasolis. The group released performances of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos on a pair of discs, with the second disc also containing the Concerto for flute, violin, harpsichord, strings, and continuo in A minor, BWV 1044. Whatever may be said for breaking up the set in other situations, this radical approach is best appreciated as a whole. Part of the charm of these classic works is their differentiation, somewhat obscured in modern performances (and even in some on historical instruments) that use a large string section.

John Butt and the Dunedin Consort are familiar to many listeners for their exquisite recordings of Baroque choral masterworks, such as Handel's Messiah and Bach's Mass in B minor, but this set of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos is the first instrumental outing for the Scottish period ensemble. Playing original instruments or modern copies, and using a lower tuning of A = 392hz, the group recreates Bach's music with a lively combination of extemporaneous ornamentation and propulsive rhythms that is invigorating for its lack of preciosity. The music is by turns brusque and gentle, and at times quite raucous, as it should be in the Concerto No. 1 in F major with its echoing horn calls, chattering oboes, and buzzing bassoon, and vigorous in the Concerto No. 3 in G major, with its energetic string playing.

…the players of the European Brandenburg Ensemble include some of the finest of today's Baroque chamber players, and there is a relaxed expertise about their performances which seems to allow them to communicate directly and without technical or ideological hindrance. This is not a Brandenburg set that sets out to score points, and all that is needed from us is to sit back and enjoy its relaxed, celebratory spirit.

Johann Sebastian Bach's flute sonatas undoubtedly require congenial partners, who play together in an unpretentious, equally important way - in the truest sense of the word, in concert. This is brilliantly fulfilled by Lars Ulrik Mortensen with his hardly surpassable vocal playing on the harpsichord and Linde Brunmayr-Tutz with virtuosity and full sound on the transverse flute.

Listeners used to the Hanover Band will need no prompting to buy this excellent series of performances, excellently recorded. They avoid some of the more quirky and, to some, off-putting aspects of period performance. There are no ugly bulges of tone and wirey shafts of under-nourished violin tone. The wind and brass play bang in tune and the instruments are fully under the control of these top players.

Following its highly acclaimed album featuring the three most richly scored Ouvertures (Gramophone Editor’s Choice – shortlisted for the 2017 Gramophone Awards and included among the Top 10 recent Bach recordings), Zefiro comes full circle with the famous collection of Concerts avec plusieurs instruments, that kaleidoscope of colours that seems almost tailor-made to highlight the salient qualities of the ensemble founded by the three historical wind specialists, Alfredo Bernardini and Paolo and Alberto Grazzi.

Everything that could be desired in a historically informed performance of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos is presented in Philip Pickett's brilliant set with the New London Consort, released in 1993 on L'Oiseau Lyre. This version with period instruments and an ensemble of a size according to Baroque norms is much more than a dry run-through of these beloved works. It is a clever and highly expressive re-creation of Bach's most popular concertos, re-imagined through the artistic and philosophical connections and conventions that likely were found in them by Bach's contemporaries, most probably by Bach and the Margrave of Brandenburg himself.

Nur wenige Werke der Musikgeschichte erfreuen sich so großer Beliebtheit wie die 1850 wiederentdeckten Sechs Brandenburgischen Konzerte von Johann Sebastian Bach. Diese dem Markgrafen Christian Ludwig von Brandenburg gewidmeten Konzerte wurden von der Hofkapelle München unter der musikalischen Leitung von Rüdiger Lotter in einer erfrischenden Interpretation neu eingespielt und bestechen durch ihre straffen Tempi. Zahlreiche bekannte Solisten wie Dorothee Oberlinger, Hille Perl, Rüdiger Lotter u. a. brillieren in den von Bach untereinander sehr unterschiedlich instrumentierten Konzerten.