Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
Performer: Kati Debretzeni
Orchestra: The English Baroque Soloists
Conductor: Sir John Eliot Gardiner
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: SDG
Release: 2019
Size: 2.26 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, BWV1041
01. I. Allegro
02. II. Andante
03. III. Allegro assai
Harpsichord Concerto No. 2 in E Major, BWV 1053 (Arr. K. Debretzeni for Violin & Orchestra)
04. I. Allegro
05. II. Siciliano
06. III. Allegro
Violin Concerto No. 2 in E major, BWV1042
07. I. Allegro
08. II. Adagio
09. III. Allegro assai
Harpsichord Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052 (Arr. W. Fischer for Violin & Orchestra)
10. I. Allegro
11. II. Adagio
12. III. Allegro
There is no shortage of good Bach violin concerto recordings, nor even of those played by historical-performance groups, yet this one has several distinct attractions. First, is simply the presence of violinist Kati Debretzeni, long a violin section leader of Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists but rarely heard as a soloist in her own right. She’s one of the few historical-performance specialists to have emerged from Eastern Europe, and she deserves wider exposure. Second, are her two arrangements of harpsichord concertos (assisted in the case of the Violin Concerto in D minor, after the Harpsichord Concerto, BWV 1052, by Wilfried Fischer), competently done and really adding viable violin concertos to the Bach repertory. Third, the ensemble size of about a dozen is ideal. Lastly, is the overall shaping of the pieces, and here Gardiner deserves a good deal of credit: everyone would have been fine if he had stayed in his usual comfortable groove, but here he responds nicely to a younger player with something to say. Debretzeni is terrific, standing up to Gardiner’s warm sound with sharp, penetrating lines and then mellowing in the slow movements into a real Italianate lyricism. Although the St. Jude’s Hampstead church sound is uninspiring, this is a very fine group of Bach violin concertos.