Pachelbel's Canon and Other Baroque Favorites.(Sound Recording Review)

Pachelbel's Canon and Other Baroque Favorites. Andrew Parrott, Taverner Players and Choir; Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra. Virgin Classics 72435-57876-2.

The 1980s saw a spurt of popularity in the period-instruments movement, and conductor Andrew Parrott and his Taverner Players and Chorus were right there in the forefront of the action. Today, we tend to take period-instruments for granted, and with the downturn in classical music recording in the 1990s, we don't hear about them so often anymore. One upshot of that situation is this 2004, two-disc, budget rerelease of Baroque favorites by Parrott and his players, plus a few by him and the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra.

All of the pieces on the discs were issued originally by EMI in the late eighties and early nineties, and all of them are digitally recorded. Frankly, there isn't a weak link among them. The Pachelbel Canon of the album's title is among the best ever recorded. Like the ...