J.S. Bach: Solo & Double Violin Concertos

"[Manze and Podger] allow the poetry of Bach's music to unfold in a comfortably measured, lucidly punctuated and eloquently inflected way." --Gramophone

“Manze is a violinist with extraordinary flair and improvisatory freedom, the Grappelli of the Baroque... [the ensemble has] unparalleled energy, an irresistibly bounding pulse and sparkling articulation from top to bottom.” --BBC Music Magazine

"The Academy of Ancient Music reveal a judicious blend of scholarship and exquisite taste. Andrew Manze has a well-deserved reputation for baroque interpretation, and his colleague Rachel Podger, also on violin, performs with equal authority. 

The slow movements of the two solo concertos are particularly striking for their beauty and style...the sound is vibrant but without so much reverberation that the inner parts of the faster movements might have been obscured. The Academy's current incarnation has expanded that scope considerable, and this CD demonstrates that its interpretations of Bach are among the finest presented today." --Audio

MP3 320 · 123 MB

Bach: Concertos for Recorder

A new recording of Erik Bosgraaf, one of the most original, versatile and innovative recorder players of the moment, winner of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust.

“Erik Bosgraaf's recorder-playing is fluent and lively in fast music, and his five colleagues (single strings and harpsichord) provide accompaniments that are lean, stylish and precise...Ensemble Cordevento's playing of fast music is joyful and accomplished.” --Gramophone, April 2012

MP3 320 · 131 MB

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos

GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE WINNER BEST BAROQUE INSTRUMENTAL 2006

"It's a while since we had a new set of the Brandenburgs and certainly a long time since one as invigorating and imaginative as this one. Rinaldo Alessandrini and his superb Italian ensemble don't mess around with the music as some other performers have been tempted to do; instead they clarify textures, point rhythms and focus on intriguing harmonic shifts, but all with scrupulous attention to the score. Really exhilarating stuff!" --Gramophone

“Alessandrini has opened a window on to Bach's music and let a refreshing current of air run through it” --BBC Music Magazine, Five Stars (Recording of the Month)

Just when you think there is nothing new to say and nothing more to add to the Brandenburg Concertos' rich interpretive spectrum on disc, along comes Rinaldo Alessandrini. In one fell swoop, the harpsichordist/conductor has created a reference period-instrument version for this century's first decade, shedding revealing light on this done-to-death repertoire without ever losing sight of the music's style and spirit. Because Alessandrini assigns one instrument to a part, the strings and horns interact more pungently than usual in the First Concerto, the Fourth's fugue becomes even more conversational and colorful, and the Sixth's dark-toned lower strings acquire a rare buoyancy. Furthermore, the generally fast tempos never slip onto the proverbial metronomic treadmill, while the slow movements feature unfailingly eloquent and flexible solo playing.

The Fifth's central trio-sonata movement is a case in point, where the flute and violin shape their long lines around the beat without losing awareness of it. It's sort of like classical jazz, and it works wonderfully well. If anything, trumpet soloist Gabriele Cassone sounds more lithe and effortless in this Second than in the excellent version he recorded with Il Giardino Armonico on Teldec. Alessandrini's continuo work soars with imagination, yet it never gets in the way--and what a dazzling, no-holds-barred first-movement cadenza in the Fifth!

There are two bonus tracks. One gives you Bach's earlier 18-bar version of the Fifth's cadenza; the other features Bach's later reworking of the Third's first movement that appeared as Cantata No. 174's Sinfonia, with added horns, oboes, and bassoon. Naïve's gorgeous, crystal-clear engineering seals my sky-high recommendation with a sonic kiss. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com [11/22/2005]

2 CD · MP3 320 · 215 MB

Bach, Handel: Harp Concertos

This unusual disc offers a high degree of listening satisfaction. That much given, this isn't a recording for the Baroque purist--only one of the six concertos for harp and strings collected on this album was actually written with the harp in mind. The remaining five are transcriptions made by Spanish virtuoso harpist Nicanor Zabaleta, who performs them all with seemingly effortless technique and infectious charisma.

For most of the selections he's accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Garcia Navarro; in the case of Handel's harp concerto in B-flat major Op. 4 No. 6 (the only true harp concerto in this collection) he's partnered by Paul Kuentz and his chamber orchestra.

Bach frequently adapted the music of others to suit his own requirements and indeed, the Handel works recorded here also sometimes reveal the hand of their arranger--for example, the Organ Concerto in F (Op. 4 No. 5), which itself is a remodelling of Handel's earlier Sonata in F for recorder (Op. 1 No. 11). So in transcribing two of Handel's organ concertos plus several concertos that Bach already had borrowed from Vivaldi, Zabaleta intelligently and resourcefully expands the concerto repertoire for his own instrument.

Zabaleta's fastidious style and un-mannered musicality ensures that these readings are constantly engaging. The recordings, which mostly date from 1978 (the last work here was taped in 1966), sound a little top-heavy and some shrillness persists in these new digital transfers; but with Zabaleta's exuberant and skillful playing so vividly conveyed, it's easy to just focus on the music, and enjoy.
--Michael Jameson, ClassicsToday.com

MP3 320 · 140 MB

J.S. Bach: Complete Orchestral Suites

“In the Freiburg Orchestra's exhilaraing account, the soft-grained Baroque flute which gilds the B minor Suite certainly fits well with the 'small is beautiful' impulse...Its reading may lack sensational revelations, but it's exuberant and stylish, laced with felicitous insights into Bach's sophisticated take on the French style...the dances leap off the page and overtures crackle with incisive declamation.” --BBC Music Magazine, April 2012 ****

Called “Ouvertüren” in Germany, because they began with a large-scale overture à la française, Bach’s 'Suites for orchestra' offer a unique synthesis of the French and the Italian styles. The Leipzig Cantor did not content himself with a mere set of amiable dances for his Collegium Musicum: he revived the genre in his own manner, accenting the contrasts, refining the orchestration, and introducing a hitherto unknown contrapuntal element. Two centuries later these joyous orchestral works represent an indispensable treasure of the Baroque.

“The Freiburg orchestra’s CD offers no star soloist, but doesn’t need one in Bach’s four orchestral suites, where the entire ensemble is the soloist. The touchstone of these performances is their joie de vivre: a lively pace, a rhythmic verve, a stylistic sleight-of-hand that keeps this music fresh and the listener on his/her toes.” --Financial Times, 7th January 2012 *****

2 CD · MP3 320 · 206 MB · 2011   bmc0112