Trevor Pinnock, The English Concert - J.S. Bach: Concertos & Orchestral Suites (2011)

In the early phase of the movement for authentic period practice, Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert were practically household names -- in early music households, anyway -- because of their critically acclaimed performances of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and other Baroque composers. These exciting recordings of the Brandenburg Concertos, the orchestral suites, the harpsichord concertos, the violin concertos, and concertos for various instruments were made between 1979 and 1984, so they are a mix of ADD and DDD recordings. Yet because of Archiv's superb reproduction in both analog and digital technologies, these performances on original instruments are clean and crisp all the way through, with remarkable fidelity. What passes for historically informed style is open to change over the years, and many later performances of these works have demonstrated new ideas and approaches that are much freer in spirit. Indeed, Pinnock's interpretations and the group's technical execution can seem a bit straightlaced and fussy, when heard decades after their releases. But these were groundbreaking performances in their time, and everyone who followed early music knew that Pinnock would deliver meticulous and scintillating versions; as a result, these extraordinary recordings helped to shift public opinion in favor of authentic period style. This Archiv box set contains eight CDs, combining two previously released sets, with the CDs reissued with the same program format.