Bach's Orchestral Music (Brandenburgs, Suites & Concertos)

[Coopmv]

It does not happen often, but I'm reconsidering and retracting my earlier positive comments on this! 
I had always regretted missing out on the Hogwood/Rousset cycle, having previously a positive impression of it and enjoying the issue with the 3-4 harpsichord concertos very much.
I recently got the reissue above and on repeated listening, it disappoints. I think Bill (Bogey) hit the nail on the head. Hogwoods accompaniment is too bland and basically very fussy. The performance is not sufficiently focused.

Q

This is one of my favorites.  Sorry for the less than perfect image quality, as this was not scanned in by my scanner ...

[Coopmv]

Talking with Premont (thanks for the list  ) on the Brandenburg Concertos the other day, a thread on Bach's music for chamber orchestra seemed a good idea!

I need some new Brandenburgs - what are your favourites?

Here are my favorites:

[Coopmv]

I have heard praises about this performance.  While I do have the Richter's Brandenburg Concertos on LP, this DVD should be a bit more interesting.  The St Matthew Passion by Karl Richter on DVD is just fabulous ...

[Mandryka]

Am I alone in liking every performance on this EXCEPT the famous one with Bernstein?

[prémont]

I have heard praises about this performance.  While I do have the Richter's Brandenburg Concertos on LP, this DVD should be a bit more interesting. 

Ooh, this DVD version is indeed horrible. Sewing-machine Bach at its worst. The music is rattled off in a most uncharming way. If you love Bach, this is not for you. Richters Choral recordings are very much better and first of all they are more expressive.

[Coopmv]

Ooh, this DVD version is indeed horrible. Sewing-machine Bach at its worst. The music is rattled off in a most uncharming way. If you love Bach, this is not for you. Richters Choral recordings are very much better and first of all they are more expressive.

The worst Richter's DVD I have to date is the St John Passion.  The camera spent more time showing the wall of the church where the performance was filmed than showing the soloists. 

[Mandryka]

The worst Richter's DVD I have to date is the St John Passion.  The camera spent more time showing the wall of the church where the performance was filmed than showing the soloists. 

What's that performance like.

I love the earlier one with Lear, Topper etc. And I like Shreier, so the DVD sounds interesting Can you recommend it ? (I don't have to watch the pictures!)

[Coopmv]

What's that performance like.

I love the earlier one with Lear, Topper etc. And I like Shreier, so the DVD sounds interesting Can you recommend it ? (I don't have to watch the pictures!)

The performance was quite commendable if you can ignore the video.  Peter Schreier was outstanding as usual.  However, the 2-DVD set of the St Matthew Passion by Karl Richter is definitely the set to own and I bought that set just before last Christmas.  I have the Richter's St Matthew Passion on LP, which has a somewhat different cast ...

[jlaurson]

Egarr's Brandenburg Concertos

Recordings of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are ample; deducting for duplications and compilations, ArkivMusic lists about 50 available complete versions. Most of them could be lumped into two categories: Historically Informed Performances (HIP), and 'old fashioned performances'. Of course that's a gross simplification, especially when the latter category is supposed to contain, much less describe, interpretations by performers as different as the Busch Chamber Players (just re-issued on EMI Great Recordings of the Century), Cortot/Orchestre de l'École Normale de Musique, Karajan/BPO, Benjamin Britten/ECO, Karl Richter/Munich Bach Orchestra, and Marinner/Academy of St.Martin in the Fields. But then man is a categorizing animal and likes those kinds of classifications and won't be deterred, even when some performances, like Helmut Rilling/Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra and Helmut Müller-Brühl/Cologne Chamber Orchestra, peskily straddle the fence.

Conveniently, this latest addition to the catalog on Harmonia Mundi with the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) under its new Music Director Richard Egarr fits the much more confined former category of "HIP", though that hardly means less competition. On a twofer of the same label, we can find the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin. Egarr's predecessor Christopher Hogwood recorded the Brandenburg Concertos with the AAM, including Egarr, not even 20 years ago (still available on L'oiseau-Lyre/London). Nicolaus Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus (Teldec) vie for our attention, as do Il Giardino Armonico (also Teldec), Ton Koopman/ABO (Erato, oop), Martin Perlman/Boston Baroque (Telarc), Jan Willem de Vriend/Combattimento Consort Amsterdam (Challenge), Reinhard Goebel/Musica Antiqua Köln, and Pinnock/English Concert (both Archiv). And that's just of the top of my head (or CD shelf, as it were).

Unfortunately I didn't have the old AAM disc handy for comparison, but the two most recent major period instrument releases—Alessandrini/Concerto Italiano on Naïve and Pinnock/Brandenburg Ensemble on Avie (reviewed in concert and on CD)—served nicely to elucidate contrast and similarities. Egarr and Alessandrini use one player per part; Pinnock mostly uses a small ensemble, switching to one-to-a-part only for the Fifth Concerto.

Egarr presents the concertos in order, and the First Concerto starts boldly with a dark and round, slightly stuffed horn sound...

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[prémont]

Egarr's Brandenburg Concertos

Just two corrections to your quoted review text.

Egarr did not participate in the recording by AAM / Hogwood.
But he did participate in Philip Pickett´s recording for Oiseau Lyre (playing continuo).

Jan Villem de Friend´s recording is played on modern instruments and should not be categorized among period instruments performances.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Also, the name of the Berlin-based HIP ensemble is "Akademie für alte Musik Berlin." I suppose you could translate this as "Academy for Ancient Music Berlin," but that's not the name that appears on CD covers.

[jlaurson]

Jan Villem de Friend´s recording is played on modern instruments and should not be categorized among period instruments performances.

CCA is a period group even if they don't play on old instruments, so the categorization strikes me as perfectly apt.

[prémont]

CCA is a period group even if they don't play on old instruments, so the categorization strikes me as perfectly apt.

Exactly, and my point is, that you ought to have categorized them along with Müller-Brühl and Rilling, instead of among the groups which notoriously play on period instruments. It causes unnecessary confusion, when groups like the Combattimento Consort are called period groups.

[nut-job]

Love the Harnoncourt (digital recording made in the 1980's).  Recently I've fallen in love with the recordings by Diego Fasolis, which are HIP and SACD surround sound.  The playing is very vibrant and sensitive, and the audio engineering is superb.  I'm ordinarily an enthusiast for HIP Bach, but there is something to learned by listening to Karajan's older recording (not the subsequent horror), particularly in the slow movements.

 

[jlaurson]

Exactly, and my point is, that you ought to have categorized them along with Müller-Brühl and Rilling, instead of among the groups which notoriously play on period instruments. It causes unnecessary confusion, when groups like the Combattimento Consort are called period groups.

You are right, of course... but the way I see (or 'feel') it more in a technical sense. When I've seen/heard CCA, they always "felt" much more like their HIP cousins than their "HIPfluenced" M-Bruehl/Rilling brothers. The latter are, to my tastes, much more a bridge between two styles whereas the CCA is HIP that happens to be on modern strings. You may not agree, but do you know what I mean?

[Coopmv]

I have this recording



and I believe a later recording ...



Is this later recording a disaster in your opinion?

I have close to 20 versions of Brandenburg Concertos between CD's and LP's.

[nut-job]

I have this recording



and I believe a later recording ...



Is this later recording a disaster in your opinion?

I have close to 20 versions of Brandenburg Concertos between CD's and LP's.

The later recording is the one I found no pleasure in.  The older one was unabashedly old school, in the newer one he seems to assimilate some HIP influences, just enough to ruin his style.

[prémont]

You are right, of course... but the way I see (or 'feel') it more in a technical sense. When I've seen/heard CCA, they always "felt" much more like their HIP cousins than their "HIPfluenced" M-Bruehl/Rilling brothers. The latter are, to my tastes, much more a bridge between two styles whereas the CCA is HIP that happens to be on modern strings. You may not agree, but do you know what I mean?

Yes, I understand very well, what you mean, and I agree completely. The Combattimento Consort´s interpretation is also in my opinion more HIP than many period instruments recordings. Actually I do not know a more exciting and rewarding recording on modern instruments than this one, and I know almost all recordings ever made of these concertos. If you look into this thread maybe a year back, you will find my recommendation of this recording.

[Coopmv]

The later recording is the one I found no pleasure in.  The older one was unabashedly old school, in the newer one he seems to assimilate some HIP influences, just enough to ruin his style.

As great as the Karajan/BPO combo were, none of their Brandenburg Concertos even rank among the top five in my book.  But you have to give Karajan/BPO credit for the string sound produced, it was just exemplary.  No other full-sized orchestras in the world could have produced such string sound.

[prémont]

The later recording is the one I found no pleasure in.  The older one was unabashedly old school, in the newer one he seems to assimilate some HIP influences, just enough to ruin his style.

I think the Concertos 1,2,4 & 5 of Karajans first recording are - if somewhat old school- tolerable and rather well played by the great soloists e.g. Alan Civil, Adolf Scherbaum and Michael Schwalbe. But the massive sound of Concertos 3 & 6 is next to intolerable.

Karajans second recording is just without style alltogether, I do not know, what he intended to show.