Search - Johann Sebastian Bach :: Bach: Brandenburg Concertos; Oboe Concerto [European Import]

Important mistake in this otherwise top notch album

Leonardo | Argentina | 05/07/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The chamber orchestra of europe is a miracle. It shows musicians who play on modern instrument really learnt something from the "original" movement. They play here with modern instruments. They are not trying to imitate (it would be impossible) all the efects old instruments have. But they try (and succeed) to acquire a sound not too far away from the old orchestras. The vibrato is not absent but not prominent. Tempi are not too fast but with enough "swing": moderate, engaging but not crazy like Goebel`s (please, don't buy his set: he is really mad). The mood is not "anemic" like other "HIP" performers and each movement has enough dinamic force to gain appeal (except for the final movement of the 6th). There is a kind of transparency in textures very enjoyable. And the set is completed with 3 marvellous concerti for oboe (1 for oboe d'amore) which is played so tastefully that you believe the player is an expert in baroque oboe. This type of recording makes you doubt if modern instruments are "old fashioned" in Baroque music.

However ... you can believe it is a detail, but with such high calibre music making, with such expertise, with so many lessons by "HIP" movement being "cooked" before having this set recorded, why on earth did they decide to play the fourth concerto with transverse flutes instead of recorders (and in the second, I doubt it is a recorder, seems also a conventional flute)???????????? We are not in the forties, in the nineties a powefull label as DG should have hired recorder players (as well gamba and harpsichord as it did). A shame, since tonal colour is very different. Would have been 5 stars, it should be one, so I decided for 3."