Anyone who believes that everything has already been said about the Brandenburg Concertos will be proven wrong by this recording. Even those who believe that they have always heard the concertos on historically correct instruments will be proven wrong by this recording. As a rule, the parts of the trumpets and horns are played on instruments without keys and valves, but these have a modern aid: bores that make playing the delicate parts immensely easier. For his recording, Sigiswald Kuijken uses pure natural instruments without these modern auxiliary bores, as he has excellent musicians at his disposal for this venture in Jean-Francois Madeuf and colleagues. The result is convincing all round and once again underlines the artistic standing of Kuijken and his ensemble La Petite Bande. In the first two concertos, one player is used per part, even for the tutti parts, to create greater transparency in overall sound. Research has shown that Bach used the shoulder cello or violoncello da spalla and three are played here.
