For jazzed-up Brandenburgs, Jacques Loussier (Telarc) is the foot-tappin’ choice. He doesn’t set out to shock (not even peripherally), or primarily excite, but to delight. His touch on the harpsichord is soft and ever-deft. Much of it purls along with gentle ease while Egarr’s finely spun harpsichord interjections make Pinnock sound comparatively earthbound. Since I’m not trying to deliberately make a list devoid of English performers (who have, after all, dominated the early music and historically informed scene for years and for good reason), I’ll go with Englishman Egarr directing the equally English Academy of Ancient Music: It’s a superb performance in a subtle way.
For that, I would choose either Jordi Savall’s recording ( Alia Vox) or that of harpsichordist-conductor Richard Egarr. Recordings of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos are ample deducting for duplications and compilations, ArkivMusic lists about 50 available complete versions… and “Pinnock II” is among a bunch of favorites, but it wouldn’t quite be my top choice. No quibbles here: Canterbury-born Trevor Pinnock’s second recording of the Brandenburg Concertos (Avie) is terrific: Historically informed playing (which has really become the standard in this repertoire) at a very high level. My Choice: Academy of Ancient Music / Richard Egarr (English, Harmonia Mundi) Gramophone’s Choice: European Brandenburg Ensemble / Trevor Pinnock (English, Avie)
Bach compositions download#
No.2 Brandenburg Concertos Academy of Ancient Music / Richard Egarr (Harmonia Mundi)Īmazon mp3: $18 | Amazon 2 CDs: ~$27 | ArkivMusic: $29 | Qobuz download £15-19 | iTunes mp3: $18 Most importantly, this enhances the dancing character of the music which is, after all, (stylized) dance music. As with Richard Egarr’s Brandenburg Concertos (mentioned below), this gives a relaxed, flexible buoyancy to the music, especially in the Third and Fourth Suites that use trumpets. Spunky and swift, it chooses the lower French baroque pitch (~392 Hz) common to Weimar and Cöthen of Bach’s time. My hard-won top pick is the performance of the Concerto Köln, though. I still love my very first recording: Gardiner’s on Erato. The 1996 recording of the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin (AAMB) has been my standard (and among my “ Best of 2013”, in its re-issue). Curiously, these works are the ones of Bach where I care least about which performance I am listening to, so long as it is one of the many good ones. I like Monica Huggett’s full, rich-sounding recording a lot, and also the reconstructions it features, and have reviewed it positively. My Choice: Concerto Köln (German, Berlin Classics) Gramophone’s Choice: Ensemble Sonnerie / Monica Huggett (English, Avie) No.1 Orchestral Suites Concerto Köln (Berlin Classics)Īmazon mp3: $16 | Amazon 2 CDs: ~$30 | ArkivMusic: $30 | Qobuz download £11 | iTunes mp3: $14 A detailed discography to accompany this list, including alternative choices, can be found on ionarts. To make the lists comparable, I’ve kept the same choice of works that Gramophone opted for, even if this means skipping over recordings of cantatas and organ works, two of the most important genres in Bach’s output, although they used to be deemed less popular even arcane. Well, that’s silly, so here is – acknowledging the still inherently subjective nature of such lists – a “Top Ten” that tries to avoid that bias and (probably) substitute it with some other, perhaps more subtle bias. have not made meaningful contributions to the genre of Bach recordings at all. Their list, 90% Anglocentric, reads almost as if the Italians, the French, the Dutch, the Germans, Czech, or Japanese etc. And indeed, when they published a “ 10 Best Bach Recordings” list early last year, they topped it in such a ridiculous way that it needed soft rebutting which I hope to provide hereby. “Proximity bias” or “mere exposure effect” might be the appropriate euphemism for them being unabashed homers.
In my time as a clerk at Tower Records, we would sometimes make fun of Gramophone Magazine’s rather obvious pro-English biases.
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