Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Reconstructed: New Brandenburg Concertos
New Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 (2021)
New Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (2020)
New Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 (2022)
La feste Musicale/Christoph Harer
rec. 2022, Schafstall, Marienmünster Abbey, Marienmünster, Germany
Audite 97.816 [65]

Bach, like some other eighteenth century composers, was an inveterate reuser of his compositions, sometimes transplanting a movement wholesale into another work, and sometimes transcribing it for a different combination of forces. Sometimes both the original and the transcription have survived, and sometimes just the one or the other. The keyboard concertos, for example, are all thought to have been written originally for a variety of single line instruments: violin, flute, oboe or others. Modern scholarship has reconstructed the originals and nowadays these are often played in preference to the extant versions. And his music has also showed itself amenable to transcription for instruments he did not know, such as the symphony orchestra, marimba or synthesiser.

There is therefore nothing to take exception to in Christoph Harer, the moving spirit behind this project as well as the cellist in them, doing something similar. All those who love the Brandenburg Concertos wish there were more of them, beyond the six Bach actually composed. Harer has given us three more, which he calls New Brandenburg Concertos. (Actually, he is not the first to do so: some years ago Bruce Haynes assembled a set of six drawn mainly from cantata movements, which he called Brandenburg Concertos 7 to 12, recorded by Bande Montreal Baroque under Eric Milnes on Atma Classique.) No. 2 is a straight transcription of the Concerto for three keyboards BWV 1064 for three string trios and bass continuo, in three movements. Nos. 1 and 3 draw from various sources, some familiar and some not. No. 1 is in four movements and No 3 in five. The details are provided in the sleevenote.

Harer says that he and his team experimented a good deal before arriving at the final versions which they have recorded. He has been at pains to distribute solo lines across the whole of his ensemble, and there is an interesting variety of these. including both recorder and transverse flute, oboe, bassoon, scordatura violin (with one string tuned unconventionally low) and lute. His ensemble, La Festa Musicale, was founded in 2014 and has already made a number of recordings. They play with zest and verve and the result is some delightful listening. The recording is good, the sleevenote helpful and I hope they go on to give us some more New Brandenburg Concertos.

Stephen Barber

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