Brandenburg Concertos YOUR Desert Island Disc selections

[Seán]

I have had cd sets of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos for several years now and I rarely listen to them, a few years ago I acquired a couple of sets that are forever gathering dust:

Bath Festival Orchestra with Yehudi Menuhin
Academy of St Martin in the Fields with Neville Marriner

More recently I splashed out on a set by Jordi Savall who, it seems, is held in very high regard, unfortunately these performance don't do much for me either:
Les six Concerts Brandebourgeois with Jordi Savall

and finally, in December, I got a set by La Petite Bande now this is much closer to what I am looking for:
La Petite Bande with Sigiswald Kuijken


I am looking for performances that explode with joyous rhythm; they are performances with a wide range of tone colour. Just before Christmas Fergus and I -- in our respective homes -- listened to the Freiburger Barockorchester play the First Concerto, it was a magical performance and it has me wanting more. Unfortunately, I can only find Brandenburg DVD recordings by the Freiburgers, there are none on CD.

So after all that, what set(s) would you recommend I get? What performances can you not live without?

[Ciaran]

Café Zimmermann!



This 6 CD set also includes the four Orchestral Suites and most of the other concertos. I got the individual volumes as they came out, but you can now buy the set for about the price of 2-3 of the original CDs. Forces are as small as possible, the performers young, the performances lively and full of dance.

Absolutely delightful!

[Diapason]

Ton Koopman, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Filled with life.

[Jared]

So after all that, what set(s) would you recommend I get? What performances can you not live without?

tremendous sets, imho...

[Diapason]

Looking around it seems my suggestion might be oop. It would be a shame if so.

[Jared]

^^ this is one of those threads where, if you ask 5 people, you're likely to get 10 different answers.. I'm quite sure that Fergus is perusing his vast Bach library as I type, blowing the dust off many a long since oop version... ;-)

[bombasticDarren]

After some consideration, these three sets make the cut for me. Having said that, I have never heard a recording of these masterly pieces that I didn't enjoy

[Seán]

Looking around it seems my suggestion might be oop. It would be a shame if so.

Well I had intended on getting the Zimmerman box set so I am delighted that Ciaran recommends these recordings, it strenghens my resolve gained from listening to their performances on amazon.fr.

There are so many different ways of performing these works and I want to get a few of them so I'll see how I go.

Keep the recommendations coming please.

One mention of Bach and they come flooding in, that's good.

[Seán]

Having said that, I have never heard a recording of these masterly pieces that I didn't enjoy

Darren, if you're ever in Dublin you will be made feel most welcome if you decide to pay me a visit and I'll introduce to some tiresome performances before we move on to better things of course..

[bombasticDarren]

Ton Koopman, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Filled with life.

A fine set and, pleasingly, not out of print. It's now on the Warner Apex stable and available on Amazon :-)