Thirty years after his first reference recording of the Brandenburg Concertos (with the Musica Antiqua Köln), conductor Reinhard Goebel, the “early music icon” and winner of the Leipzig Bach Medal, is presenting an exciting new reference recording of Bach’s celebrated masterpiece. For this project he has joined forces with the Berlin Barock Solisten, an ensemble formed in 1995 from members of the Berlin Philharmonic and leading figures in Berlin’s early music scene with the goal of playing 17th- and 18th-century music at the highest artistic level on modern or modernised period instruments. Maestro Goebel and the Berlin Barock Solisten perform the Brandenburgs not only with consummate technique but with thrilling verve, supreme sensitivity and a wealth of dynamic contrasts. Goebel has also incorporated the latest findings of musical scholarship in his recording, for example regarding the choice of instruments. Rounding off the recording are the Sinfonias from the Cantatas Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte (BWV 174) and Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats (BWV 42), both of which relate musically to the Brandenburg Concertos.

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REVIEW:

Goebel continues to rejoice in dashing tempos and they have become faster than ever, for which there is great conviction in evidence. So precise is the playing and so exhilarating the rhythmic pulse that Goebel manages to justify his challengingly personal yet convincing view of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.

– Classical Source