Brandenburg Concertos; Concerto Italiano

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/gramofi...214386&mediaID=218242&type=edschoice&edsdate=

Anyone know of them/heard them yet?

 

Alessandrini

Certainly not, as they not yet have been released. But judged from Alessandrinis other Bach recordings, they ought to be very fine. I shall order them as soon as possible.

 

Thanks, pe-zulu, this could account for why nobody's heard them yet! (Except "Gramophone", of course). Think I might join you...

 

They are my favourite baroque band... their Pergolesi Stabat Mater hits home better than any other I've heard, as does their stunning Vivaldi Gloria. After it, any other recording seems sleepy and dull.

 

They are supposed to be released 16.11.05.
And you can pre-order them at www.amazon.de or at www.jpc.de

 

I would like to draw attention as well to the leader of the group, the organist and harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini, who among other things has recorded organ music by Frescobaldi and harpsichord music by Bach, Buxtehude and Böhm, not to mention his exciting recording for Arcana of Alessandro Scarlattis (Domenicos father) fabulous toccatas.

 

The whole set have just had rave reviews in BBC Music Magazine. I have a few of their Monteverdi recordings and the Scarlatti & Pergolesi "Stabat Mater"and am mightily impressed and would buy the Brandenburgs on the strength of those.

 

I've heard the 1st movement of no.3. It was on the Gramophone disc this month. Very fast, but very exciting. I loved it, thought it was an interesting spin and very musical. My wife who is also a classically trained violinist thought it was too fast and vulgar. I thought it was vulgar in a very exciting way and would happily fork out for the whole set

 

Mine arrived this morning. First impressions is that they're very good indeed. I always listen to No.2 first, to see whether (a) it was worthwhile for the recorder player to turn up that day, and (b) whether the trumpeter was equal to that murderous part. The answers are (a) mostly yes and (b) yes. The recorder managed to make itself heard most of the time and the trumpeter only fluffed a few notes, even though the thing was taken at quite a brisk pace. No.2 comes to the same abrupt end as Goebel and the Musica Antiqua Köln uses, as if someone had yanked their plug out of the socket.

I didn't agree with Mrs. LordSummit about the speed of No.3 - it was brisk but not breathless. The final movement is a mite too fast, too fast for clean articulation of some of the more rapid passages. (Forgot to mention, you also get the "other" No.3 first movement, the modified version with horns, used in Cantata BWV 174.)

Another inclusion that throws you if you haven't read the booklet is the appearance again of the harpsichord at the end of No.5. They've recorded the famous cadenza (first one in history remember) twice, once in the Margrave of Brandenburg's version (used in the performance of the concerto), and then the shorter original cadenza is tacked on the end after the third movement. Another oddity I found is the ebb and flow with which the harpsichordist endowed the cadenza - he doesn't take it an a single speed but speeds up and slows down. It's not bad, just different to what I'm used.

The set is well recorded and it has a delightful lightness and nimbleness to it. It might be the best version I have - some comparison needed to ascertain that. But certainly a set worth having. There's also a DVD with the set, but I haven't got around to looking at it yet. They say that the Concerto Italiano do a mean Four Seasons. On the strength of this set I believe it - and I guess I know what I'm getting for Christmas...

 

Alessandrinos Brandenburgs

Hmm, fast, fluent, transparent. Competent soloists and very strong direction from Alessandrino, making the ensemble sound like one great organism suppressing the individuality of the soloists. Interesting aspect but one-eyed and in the end too much easy-going Vivaldi style and a bit too shallow for Bach. The formal scheme of the Brandenburgs is to some degree Italian, but the content is Bach and Bach and Bach. Alessandrinos version is very similar to the version of Giardino Armonico (Teldec). The latter with less dominating direction allowing a little more individuality from the soloists. And a bit more angular and rough (reminding faintly of Harnoncourts second 1982 version). I have compared the versions directly. I listened also to the Göbel (Archiv) version, which is beautifully played and very fast and light too, but in the long run irritating because of the frequent strong accents and the persistent use of messa di voce, which in short time lets the playing seem mannered.

 

After a concert in Zurich I talked nearly for 20 minutes with Antonini, the conductor of "Il Giardino Armonico". We didn't also talk about his way of interpretating Vivaldi but also Bach, Händel and others.
Very important was his statement on how much Bach and Händel were influenced and very related to the Italian Barocco.
There is a substantial technical difference in the interpretations of these two italian groups. Antonini is using the "action and reaction" way, which simulates what a rubber ball does when falling on the floor. This action gives a lightness to the whole score but nevertheless uses all the accents of the "traditional" way of playing Bach.
Instead talking about Harnoncourt, it is the opposite. He is using the action of a bomb falling down in every accent. Luckily it isn't ballet music because the dancers would have to dig into the stage to be compatible with that style of interpretating the music. In this occasion the Harnoncourts version of Dvorak Slavonic Dances come in my mind: very nicely done but as I said before nothing to do with dancing except for burring you own grave in a field.

 

Italian Bach style

Titian,
Nice theories are good, but in practice I can't hear that rubber ball effect in the Giardino recording. What I hear, is that the strong beats in Harnoncourts 1982 Brandenburg recording is a tad more accentuated and the tempo a little slower compared to the Giardino Armonico recording. Harnoncourt follows here more or less the usual German "Kapelmeister" tradition,( e.g. Karl Münchinger) as to the degree of accentuation, but Harnoncourt usually puts only half the number of accentuations in every bar, this resulting in true Alla Breve meter, and this has become common practice in the HIP movement. An exception though is Harnoncourts awful treatement of the first movement of Concerto no. VI. BTW I mentioned Harnoncourt just to illustrate my words about the stronger individuality of the soloists and the discrete rough quality of sound in the Giardino recording as compared to the Alessandrino recording. Thoughts about the rhytm were not in my mind.

The Italian influence is clearly much stronger with Händel, especially in his chamber music, and Bach and Händel can't be compared directly in this matter. If you look at the score of a Concerto Grosso of Vivaldi (E.g. one of the L'Estro Armonico concertos, which Bach admired so much) you will only in rare instances find real counterpoint. Most of the music is melody with perfunctory accompagnement , i.e. the continuo harmonies written out for the ripieni. With Bach you find lots of counterpoint all the time. The problem with these Italian HIP groups with their smooth seamless Vivaldi-like style is IMO that they suppress the effect of the counterpoint, making it more or less unpointed. And the counterpoint and the extraordinary invention of all the parts is perhaps the most important thing to bring out in the music of Bach. This is what I had in mind calling Alessandrinis interpretation one-eyed.