J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos

Although Italy boasts a thriving early music scene, Italian musicians are not exactly famed for their Bach. Rinaldo Alessandrini’s Concerto Italiano has been the exception, recording a selection of keyboard concertos, an imaginative realisation of The Art of Fugue and now a set of the Brandenburg Concertos. The set includes a DVD in which Alessandrini explains (in French) his approach to these concertos, patriotically emphasising the Italian influences on them (notably in the Fourth Concerto).

He has chosen to do the Brandenburgs with a one-to-a-part ripieno group, which not only allows him to achieve an exceptional degree of clarity, but also highlights the unique nature of each concerto. In his hands, these amazing concertos sound like forerunners of the experiments in instrumental timbre undertaken by composers such as Messiaen and Boulez in the 1950s.

In general, these pocket-sized Brandenburgs work very well; only in the Fifth Concerto did I miss the contrast between the weight of a larger body of ripieno strings and the concertino group. Throughout, the playing is accomplished and alive. There is an excellent trumpeter in the Second Concerto, a fearless pair of horns in the First and some delicious sounds from the recorders in the Fourth. On the whole, Alessandrini avoids the extremely fast tempi so beloved of baroque practitioners these days. The only exception to this comes in the last movement of the Third, which goes like a rocket.

Alessandrini includes an alternative version of the Third’s first movement, Bach reorchestrated it for use as the Sinfonia of Cantata 174; with its horns and oboes it sounds like an offcut from the First Concerto. He also includes an early, much less effective, version of the harpsichord cadenza in the Fifth Concerto. The recording was made in the Palazzo Farnese, the venue for Tosca’s encounter with Baron Scarpia, a beautiful acoustic, combining clarity with an inviting warmth.

About the performers

Rinaldo Alessandrini founded Concerto Italiano in 1984, building it into one of the leading Italian period-instrument ensembles of its generation and, as this recording’s own booklet notes make clear, a deliberate answer to the perception that Italian musicians had left the interpretation of Italian and German Baroque repertoire largely to specialists elsewhere. Alessandrini himself trained as a harpsichordist and organist before turning to conducting and direction, and much of Concerto Italiano’s recorded output, from Monteverdi madrigals to this Bach cycle, reflects that same close attention to historically informed performance practice applied across both vocal and instrumental repertoire.