Release 27

Now a Classical Chart best-seller!

“This is now my first-choice recording of the Brandenburgs.” – Andrew Clark, Financial Times, Dec. 8, 2007

Highest rating! “[T]here could hardly be a better cheer-up sound for dark winter days than the lively and melodious sounds of Bach's great collection of instrumental inventiveness.” – Robert Beale , Manchester Evening News, Jan. 4, 2008

“These performances by the eponymous Brandenburg Ensemble enjoy a warm, intimate sonic patina that often reminds one of their antique antecedents.” –Gary Lemco, Audiophile Audition , Jan. 2008

“Trevor Pinnock... first recorded the Brandenburgs in the early 1980s, but here he reanimates the music as if coming to it completely fresh - which in a sense he did when he formed the European Brandenburg Ensemble for this purpose and hand-picked its players from leading period instrument orchestras. There have, of course, been developments in style and scholarship over the past 25 years, but the biggest change is in Pinnock himself: the music-making is lighter, better attuned to what the music itself is expressing. It's a revelation to find the allegros played with such brio, to hear the wind voicing in the second and fourth concertos so subtly balanced and articulated, to sense Bach's daring instead of his order and discipline. This is now my first-choice recording of the Brandenburgs.”
– Andrew Clark, Financial Times, Dec. 8, 2007

Trevor Pinnock brings his adventurous new Brandenburg Concertos to Avie!

“With the Brandenburg Concertos, it will be like your regular walk in the park – the path is mapped out for you and you know the way – but the light is always different.” – Trevor Pinnock
The most eagerly awaited Bach recording in years is now available!
Trevor Pinnock first recorded Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concertos some twenty-five years ago; these recordings have been considered by many critics and music lovers to be the Brandenburg cycle of choice since their release.
This new recording is a product of Mr. Pinnock’s love for and continued fascination with these ground-breaking concertos, and in the working process and interaction of musicians in ensemble. Eager to cut through any narrow conceptions of period style, players from different countries and of different generations were invited to join this new voyage of exploration.
In the early eighteenth century there was no fixed concept of the orchestra; these pieces could be performed on single instruments to a part or with orchestral parts doubled. This fine recording demonstrates a variety of approaches.

A major new recording of some of the most popular works in the baroque repertoire
Trevor Pinnock is among the most popular interpreters of baroque music
Pinnock has assembled an ensemble of some of the world's finest period instrument virtuosos and undertaken an unprecedented interpretive rethinking of Bach's most famous concertos
This new set is destined to be the Brandenburgs of choice in a crowded and highly competitive field

Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.1 in F Major, BWV1046 / Brandenburg Concerto No.2 in F Major, BWV1047 / Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G Major, BWV1048 / Brandenburg Concerto No.4 in G Major, BWV1049 / Brandenburg Concerto No.5 in D Major, BWV1050 / Brandenburg Concerto No.6 in B-flat Major, BWV1051

Katy Bircher, flute (No.5) / Robert Ehrlich (Nos.2 & 4) and Antje Hensel (No.4), recorder / Katharina Spreckelsen (Nos.1 & 2), Richard Earle (No.1), Frances Norbury (No.1), oboes / Eyal Streett (No.1), bassoon / David Blackadder, trumpet (No.2) / Tim Jackson (No.1), Etienne Cutajar (No.1), horns / Kati Debretzeni,violino piccolo (No.1) and violin (No.4) / Bojan Čičić (No.2) and Beatrix Hülsemann (No.5), violin / Jane Rogers and Emilia Benjamin, violas (No.6)
European Brandenburg Ensemble / Trevor Pinnock, conductor

AVI-2119
CDs | Slimline jewelcase
Classical: Orchestra | Price Code 2D