Looking for good recording of Brandenburg Concerto

[TheMusicalMarine]

I bought a cheapie version of them a couple years ago, and they were just fine, but I misplaced it a while ago. Anybody have a particular favorite recording? Thanks

[Guy Berger]

I bought a cheapie version of them a couple years ago, and they were just fine, but I misplaced it a while ago. Anybody have a particular favorite recording? Thanks

I'm not an expert on these works, and this one is awfully expensive at full price, but I really like the Giardino Armonico's (period instruments) set. Nice blatty baroque horns on the first concerto.

Guy

[TheMusicalMarine]

Thanks, Guy. I'll give it a looksee.

[Leeway]

I can recommend these:

The last one by MonicaHuggett and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Edited January 21, 2005 by Leeway

[B. Goren.]

Please check if Ton Koopman and his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra recorded it. They have great interpretation of music from the baroque era.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Yes, Koopman on Erato CDs - now OOP, I believe. I love these versions. Note that these use the Werckmeister III temperament, which is gorgeous and filled with color. Crispian Steele Perkins is trumpet soloist.

Mike

[B. Goren.]

You can also take a look at J. S. Bach home page for recommended (or not) recordings.

[B. Goren.]

I found it for you:

http://www.jsbach.org/koopmanbrandenburgconcertos.html

[brownie]

When I was discovering Bach a very long time ago, one of the most interesting interpretation was Hermann Scherchen's. That was out on Westminster. It is still available on CD.

Faraway from the current reinterpretations but the Scherchen versions were glorious!

[Larry Kart]

Chuck may the only person on the planet who agrees with me here (if he does), but I love Jacha Horenstein's mid-1950s Brandenburgs on Vox. At some point in the tranisition from "old" ways of playing Bach to "new" ways (and we've now had more than a few of those), the idea that Bach's music had a vital vertical, sounding-together component as well as a horizontal, contrapuntal lines in motion one, seemed to get lost. Or rather the vertical component, in the HIP era, came to be focused primarily on the timbre of the "right" instruments sounding together rather than on those vertical harmonic components that Bach 's music shares with, say, the music of Brahms. Without being at all heavy, Horsenstein gets the vertical and the horizontal aspects going in what seems to me to be just the right way. I wouldn't mind hearing this done in more modern sound and with HIP trimmings, but I've never this in any of the HIP recordings I've run across.

[mikeweil]

The 2-CD set by Nova Stravaganza led by Siegbert Rampe on Virgin Veritas is the most up to date as far as historically informed performances are concerned - Rampe also published a voluminous book on Bach's orchestral music in German which demonstartes he is the most knowledgeable in this respect.

For best sound and a broader view beyond the Brandenburgs I'd recommend the version of Café Zimmermann on the French Alpha label - they combine one or two of them with other orchestral music - this could become the new reference recording on period instruments.

[rostasi]

I enjoy the Rilling recordings on Hänssler. They are not HIP if that's a criteria that you follow.

Reasonably priced (outside the boxset) and quite warm sounding with accurate tempo.

[Д.Д.]

Incidentally, just yesterday I was enjoying the first listening of the Brandenburg concerts, Alfred Cortot conducting (EMI Reference series - now OOP?). Now, the quality is not exaclty hi-fi (but very decent for '30s recording) but the performances is very lively and moving.