EDITOR'S CHOICE Bach

Brandenburg Concertos. Cantata No 174— Sinfonia

Also includes DVD 'Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italian° record the Brandenburg Concertos'

A film by Phillippe Beziat

Concerto Italian° /

Rinaldo Alessandrini Naive e © (2 CDs + 1 0P30412 (100' • DDD)

Selected comparison:

Musica Antigua Kolb, Goebel (3/88) (ARCH) 423 I 16-2AH2

Invigorating performances that don't need to shock to grab the attention

How do you embark on a new addition to the vast pile of

Brandenburg Concerto recordings? Do you go for a radical interpretation set to make people jump, laugh or recoil in surprise? Or do you perform them more or less as other good performers have but just try to do it better? Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italian° have gone for the latter approach and succeeded brilliantly. There is perhaps no Baroque group around today that can do the simple and obvious things to such exciting effect.

This is not to say that their Brandenburgs have no distinguishing features — just that, where they do, they spring from eminent good sense, as, for instance, in No 3 when the two central link chords come attached to a harpsichord flourish which has arisen directly from the first movement's final chord; or the abrupt ending of No 2; or any number of places where an inner part is brought out with the help of a generously drawn legato so that you are left wondering why you never noticed it before.

Indeed, clarity of texture is one of this recording's most glorious virtues, offering a view of the contrapuntal wonders of the music that has not always been available.

This is particularly striking in the potentially murky, homogeneous textures of Nos 3 and 6; but the other, more colourfully scored concertos are just as lucidly done — a triumph of the balancer's art, obviously, but surely just as much a result of clearheaded thinking on the part of the performers. Equally enlivening is a tight attention to articulative detail and tasteful ornamentation which keeps the music bouyant and forward-moving at all times.

Technically, things are not always perfect: the horn players struggle sometimes to keep up in No 1 and the solo trumpet part in No 2 is a bit harum-scarum. But the performances are so joyous and fresh that, in their straightforward but deeply musical way, they are the most invigorating newcomers to the Brandenburg fold since Musica Antigua Keln's provocative recording of the mid-1980s. Right now can't stop playing these discs.

Bonuses come in the form of the Sinfonia to Cantata 174 (a version of the first movement of Concerto No 3 to which lusty oboes and horns have been added) and a curious 'patch take' of the shorter, swirling first version of the harpsichord cadenza to No 5 (which I suppose you could edit in yourself if you happen to have the equipment). There is also a pleasingly unhyperbolic DVD of the sessions including interviews with Alessandrini. Lindsay Kemp