BACH: Concerto for Harpsichord, Strings and Continuo No. 1 in D minor; Concerto for Flute, Violin, Harpsichord and Strings in A minor; VIVALDI: Concerto for Violin and Strings in D Op. 7/11; Concerto for Violin and Strings in D, Op. 7/12 – I Musici – PentaTone 4.0 SACD PRC 5186 149, RQR Series, 64:58 [Distr. by Naxos] *****:
This is another of the many four-channel masters which Philips recorded in the first part of the 1970s for possible release on one of the then-competing quad surround formats. However, they decided (correctly) that none of them was ready for prime time and though many were mixed down to two-channels for standard LP release, the surround masters sat on the shelves. Until now. The former Philips staff who founded PentaTone are reissuing them now alongside their new 5.0-channel recordings as their remastered RQR quad series of SACDs. They decided not to mix the four channels to 5 or 5.1 and I doubt anyone would seriously miss the center channel on these excellent recordings.
I Musici is an Italian chamber orchestra founded in 1952 and was one of the leading such ensembles in the world and on recordings during the late 50s, the 60s and 70s. Their debut recording was only the second time Vivaldi’s Four Seasons had ever been recorded, and the ensemble still continues today. The soloists on this recording are harpsichordist Maria Teresa Garatti, flutist Severino Gazzelloni, and violinist Salvatore Accardo. The recordings were made in Switzerland in 1973 and 1975 but do not in any way sound dated.
All three of the major Baroque composers – Bach, Handel and Vivaldi – wrote excellent solo concertos. Bach trained himself by arranging violin concertos of Vivaldi for keyboard and orchestra, thus creating the first keyboard concertos. Bach’s own concertos for violin and strings served as role models for his harpsichord concertos, of which he penned a total of 15. The most dramatic and effective solo one to my taste is his first, the Concerto in D minor BWV 1052. Its first movement also appears for organ and chamber orchestra as the overture to one of his cantatas. The Vivaldi original concerto has been lost, but one can hear typical violin passages in the concerto. The violin was also capable of up to a fifth higher treble notes than the harpsichords of the period, so Bach merely transposed the highest notes with ones in lower octaves. This is a rigorous and exciting performance.
Bach’s Triple Concerto may be the last concerto he wrote. In it he falls back again on his earlier compositions as role models. The two Vivaldi concertos come from his Op. 7, which has two oboe concertos as well as ten violin concertos. They are part of the gigantic number of Vivaldi compositions, which includes over 230 violin concertos that were not lost. Both three-movement concertos are given glorious performances by I Musici, with Accardo as the soloist.
– John Sunier
