John Puccio reviews ...

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 4-6; Triple Concerto, BWV 1044. Trevor Pinnock, the English Concert. DG Archiv 474 220-2.

The excellent little accompanying booklet note mentions that these 1982 recordings were among the first performed of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos on period instruments. They were about the fourth or fifth period recordings, actually, with Haroncourt's 1967 recordings probably being the first. Be that as it may, Pinnock and his band play the pieces as well as anybody before or since, and it's always good to see them show up at a mid price.

The hallmark of Pinnock's interpretations have always been their vivacity, their liveliness, which at the time they were made was attributed to the relatively fast tempos of the outer movements, tempos that have now become commonplace among not only the period-instruments crowd but with modern-instrument enthusiasts as well. More than just playing fast, Pinnock leads well-judged renderings, well balanced, well played. Indeed, Simon Standage's violin virtuosity alone seems worthy of the disc's price. It's also helpful to have Pinnock's 1984 reading of Bach's Triple Concerto, BWV 1044, along for the ride, too.

The turning point for a lot of potential buyers, however, and there must be a few people around who haven't already bought these recordings in one of their previous incarnations, may be the early digital sound. One can look at it in two ways, depending upon one's playback system. Either the sonics are wonderfully clean, light, and transparent, opening up textures never heard before; or they are bright and hard, lacking weight, and opening up textures never wanted before. I must admit that the recording sounded a bit bright to my ears on first playing it, but then by comparison everything else I put on sounded dull, clouded, and over-reverberant. Comparisons aren't always what they're cracked up to be.

I still don't think the recorded sound is as natural as that offered up by Leonhardt and his all-star crew in their 1976 period-instruments performances, now remastered by Sony Seon. Nor do I think the interpretations are any more lively or loving than Jordi Savall's with the Le Concert des Nations on Astree. But the Pinnock discs have the advantage of coming in at a mid price, which is something, although you have to buy two of them to get all six concertos since the folks at Archiv have not seen fit to include all of them in one, lower-priced two-disc set. Oh, well. These discs are still well worth investigating.

Bach: Orchestral Suites Nos. 1, 3, and 4. Jeanne Lamon, Tafelmusik. Analekta FL 2 3134.

The wonder is not that Jeanne Lamon and her Baroque orchestra, Tafelmusik, do so fine a job playing the Bach Orchestral Suites, but that it's taken them so long to record them. To say they're played about as well as one could imagine is an understatement.