Brandenburg

There probably isn't a recording anywhere of Johann Sebastian Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos that can match the breakneck speeds of the performances by early music specialist Marek Stryncl and his virtuoso period ensemble Musica Florea. In cases where a jaunty Allegro or Allegro moderato can be assumed, Stryncl opts for Presto, or even Prestissimo, apparently with sound scholarship to back up his choices. This may be a legitimate Baroque practice (lay listeners could not know otherwise, without access to Stryncl's research), but there is a point where the rapid tempos will seem unduly hasty and become irritating to anyone who wants to linger over such niceties as instrumental color, articulation, harmony, and counterpoint.

Since the beginning of it’s existence in 1960, the Slovak Chamber Orchestra has developed into one of the most popular ensembles in the field of classical music in Slovakia, and into one of the principal representatives of the Slovak interpretation art abroad. The idea of founding a string orchestra has risen in the mind of Prof. Bohdan Warchal in the late 50-s, while still a member of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra.

If you know and love the Brandenburgs, seriously consider listening to these renditions for piano duo. In the imagination place yourself in the days before recording; hearing these peices in that way will give an idea of what it must have been like to know Bach, to want to hear Bach, to have the muscial skills to play Bach, but have no chamber orchestra at your disposal. A piano or two would do, if you had Reger's transcriptions. Why wait years for the next concert, if you could play them today? And because Reger loved Bach each piece has an air of homage.

Johann Sebastian Bach and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin go back a long way together! This recording, made with the welcome participation of Isabelle Faust and Antoine Tamestit, follows the complete violin concertos (2019), which left a lasting impression. Returning regularly to the inexhaustible source of the Brandenburgs ever since a memorable first recording in the late 1990s, the Berlin musicians have achieved a sovereign mastery of what is not a single work, but six, which, under their fingers, are successive episodes of a piece of musical theatre in love with dance, transparent sound and freedom. An exhilarating experience!