Favourites, Shelf Discovery: Trevor Pinnock

Compared to his great contemporary Handel, who physically travelled across Europe absorbing as many musical influences as possible before settling in London, Johann Sebastian Bach was somewhat provincial (treks up to see Buxtehude perform in Lübeck notwithstanding). Yet there are many ways to travel, and Bach's own journey across the eighteenth-century musical European landscape took place in purely intellectual terms – absorbing the orchestral suite which originated in France, visiting England (in name at least) for a set of keyboard suites, and crossing the Alps for the Italianate concerto. Bach's (or perhaps anyone's) greatest contribution to the concerto form was the six concertos which he sent to the Margrave of Brandenburg to tout for potential work, and which frustratingly received no response (something anyone who has applied for employment can no doubt empathise with!).

It's noticeable that the pioneers of performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos on period instruments that appeared in the early 1980s had a somewhat national character – from the exciting yet perhaps 'harum-scarum' approach of Musica Antiqua Köln and Reinhard Goebel from Germany in 1987 and Ton Koopman's sincere and deeply felt performances with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 1985 all the way through to the stylish Concerto Italiano under Rinaldo Alessandrini from Italy in 2005. Who better, then, to bring all these approaches (and many of the musicians involved) together than Trevor Pinnock, the man whose English Concert recording in 1982 was a pioneer in this trend, and for many remains a landmark interpretation. Twenty-five years later he did just that with his second recording of the Brandenburg Concertos made in 2006/2007, with the European Brandenburg Ensemble, an ensemble whose musicians were hand-picked by Pinnock.

A perusal of the members of the EBE in the booklet reveals the 'all-star' nature of the line-up, and it's interesting to note the members whose careers have gone on to even greater things since the recording was made – names that particularly stood out for me were violinist Bojan Čičić, who dazzled us with his rediscovery of the Italian composer Carbonelli in 2017, one of his partners in the Third Brandenburg Concerto Kati Debretzeni who magnificently recorded all of Bach’s Violin Concertos with John Eliot Gardiner's English Baroque Soloists in 2019, and on the notoriously difficult-to-play baroque trumpet David Blackadder, who has continued his outstanding work with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. (You can watch a fascinating video by him about the perils of baroque trumpeting here).

Comparing the groundbreaking English Concert recordings of the Brandenburgs with this later set, it is really quite striking to hear the improvements in period-instrument performance in the intervening twenty-five years – to my ears rhythms are tighter, the playing crisper, and although they never feel rushed, tempos are quicker. Whereas the performers in 1982 were pioneers and have an audible sense of discovery and freshness in their performance, the ensemble in 2006 were seasoned veterans both of Bach and of period performance and sound like it, with particular highlights for me being the crystal-clear counterpoint in the third concerto (whose crescendo in the third movement is truly thrilling), the extraordinarily expressive yet precise trumpet-playing in the joyous second concerto, and the wonderfully rich and dark sonorities in the sixth concerto (my personal favourite).

In many ways the recording is both an ideal version both for someone who has never heard the Brandenburgs before, and also for ideal for someone (like me) who has heard several – as a collection of some of the finest baroque performers of the past twenty years you won't hear them performed better, but at the same time those who appreciate the various approaches and styles will be fascinated to hear how they have been brought together. Trevor Pinnock manages to draw not only from his own vast experience but is also willing to be open to various approaches to Bach from across the continent, and he manages to amalgamate them while at the same time remaining true to his own musical philosophy - something of which Johann Sebastian Bach himself would doubtless have approved!