Bach: Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1-6 [IMPORT]

Johann Sebastian Bach (Composer), Berlin Akademie für Alte Musik (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: Berlin Akademie für Alte Musik
• Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
• Audio CD (March 14, 2000)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Harmonia Mundi Fr.
• ASIN: B00004RJSA
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,099,663 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
These days there seem to be two fundamental styles of playing Bach and other 18th-century composers on period instruments: one approach is to try to get the ensemble to sound as polished, balanced, and elegant as possible--which is favored by most British and North American groups--while the other is to emphasize the piquant coloration, raucous loud dynamics, and scrappy individual tone of the old instruments--which seems to be preferred by most of the German and Italian bands out there, as represented by Il Giardino Armonico par excellence. These exuberant, somewhat rough-hewn accounts of the Brandenburg Concertos, from the Berlin-based Akademie für Alte Musik, belong decidedly to the latter category, but are without a doubt among the best of their kind currently available on disc. Recorded in 1997 and first released in 1998, the readings celebrate texture and timbre with playing that is spiky, sharply accented, wiry, and energetic but never unduly abrasive or rude. Bach's voice leading and sparkling contrapuntal refinements sometimes get lost in the shuffle, but there is a sense of panache to the performances that gets back to the very meaning of Baroque--as something "strange, irregular, and fantastic." --Ted Libbey

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly fresh, May 10, 2005

By	Leonardo "Leo" (Argentina) - See all my reviews

This is one of the most wonderful Brandenburg sets I ever have listened to (Including Tafelmusik, Goodman, Chamber orchestra of europe, Orch age enlightment, Hogwood, Leppard (best of traditional versions, superb), Richter). It has great freshness, dinamic pulse and spontaneus vitality. And those virtues are consistently maintained along the whole set. Of course not always everything sounds like what one would like (for when you listen several versions, you begin to draw an "ideal version") because interpreters will not have the same oppinion that you, eg the last movement of the 6th (I would have liked a more "demonic" or "maniac" pulse, but it's fine as it is), or the not ideal "hooty" oboe sound in the 1st concerto.
You have strenght and vigour: look at the beggining of Nº 1 or to the whole 3º, among incountables exemples. You have transparency of textures (in the 5th is the first time I can hear what Bach wrote for the ripieno strings). You have intense speeds (The 4th Presto is real presto) without being breathless (like Goebel's set). You have also delicacy (the minuets in the 1st (first time it is made with real grace instead of the usual strenght, at odds with this courtly dance). And spontaneity (the recorder parts,the imaginative solution to the misterious slow mov of the 3rd, or the cadenza of 1st mov of the 5th, which is felt like an "improvised" fashion, with parts prestissimo and sudden stops, very different from the usual "sewing machine", uniform speeds of actual harpsichordists). And a lot of attention to instrumental textures, essential thing in ancient instruments (look at the horns in the first, the trumpet in the second, the strings in general).
To sum up, very, very vital. Not ideal -who can does it?- but better, better than the Brittishs. It has a real, extroverted personality. To listen to again and again, a lasting source of seduction.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful! Better than that!, November 8, 2003

By	Andrew M. Klein (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Truly inspired revelations about this music, especially from the wind instruments and the contrabasse. (Do listen on something that will give you bass sound without stint.) The Allegro from the Third is the most exciting music I've heard since Biondi's marvelous assault -- and I use the word advisedly -- on Vivaldi's Four Seasons. If we could hear things played this way in the concert hall, we'd go there more often. Don't miss it. Find it somewhere, somehow and wonder!