Bach, J S: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV1049 - download (MP3 & FLAC)

“…a constant delight. …Katie Debretzeni deserves the highest praise: her phrasing, punctuation and inflective charm contain all the communicative apparatus of the finest oratory, bringing, to my ears at least, something entirely fresh to this sublime music.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2009 *****

“Gardiner’s Bachian zeal hovers over the performances: these are refreshingly unmannered accounts, brilliantly played... The Fourth — for violin and two recorders — and Fifth — with solo violin, flute and harpsichord — have rarely sounded more intimate, while the all-string concertos, the Third and the violinless Sixth, tingle with the spirit of baroque dance.” Sunday Times, 15th November 2009 ****

“[Gardiner] lets his band get on with it and the results...are superb. The English Baroque Soloists, led by Kati Debretzeni, listen to each other like a jazz group, mirroring and echoing the other players, responding to subtle changes of dynamics or tempo.” The Telegraph, 13th January 2010 ****

“…these performances are recognisable enough as being in the Gardiner mould. There is the usual clarity of texture and detail; few accounts of Nos 3 and 6 have such chiselled edges and unobtrusively assertive inner parts. Tempi are brisk, and while they are not hard-driven in the way they might have been 20 years ago, the finale of No 2 charges to a startlingly abrupt finish. ...these are undeniably Brandenburgs of flair and understanding.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2010

“this disc stands up on its own quite simply as a smashing performance that has evidently been recorded for sheer delight in the music...The ensemble playing is a model of cohesive teamwork, but the players also shine as individuals in the many virtuoso solo passages” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 4th November 2009

“Alessandrini has opened a window on to Bach's music and let a refreshing current of air run through it” BBC Music Magazine, 1st November 2005

“How do you embark on a new addition to the vast pile of Brandenburg Concerto recordings? Do you go for a radical interpretation set to make people jump, laugh or recoil in surprise? Or do you perform them more or less as other good performers have but just try to do it better? Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano have gone for the latter approach and succeeded brilliantly. There is perhaps no Baroque group around today that can do the simple and obvious things to such exciting effect.
This is not to say that their Brandenburgs have no distinguishing features – just that, where they do, they spring from eminent good sense, as, for instance, in No 3 when the two central link chords come attached to a harpsichord flourish which has arisen directly from the first movement's final chord; or the abrupt ending of No 2; or any number of places where an inner part is brought out with the help of a generously drawn legato so that you are left wondering why you never noticed it before.
Indeed, clarity of texture is one of this recording's most glorious virtues, offering a view of the contrapuntal wonders of the music that has not always been available.
This is particularly striking in the potentially murky, homogeneous textures of Nos 3 and 6; but the other, more colourfully scored concertos are just as lucidly done – a triumph of the balancer's art, obviously, but surely just as much a result of clear-headed thinking on the part of the performers.
Equally enlivening is a tight attention to articulative detail and tasteful ornamentation which keeps the music bouyant and forward- moving at all times.
Technically, things are not always perfect: the horn players struggle sometimes to keep up in No 1 and the solo trumpet part in No 2 is a bit harum-scarum. But the performances are so joyous and fresh that, in their straightforward but deeply musical way, they are the most invigorating newcomers to the Brandenburg fold since Musica Antiqua Köln's provocative recording of the mid-1980s.
Bonuses come in the form of the Sinfonia to Cantata 174 (a version of the first movement of Concerto No 3 to which lusty oboes and horns have been added) and a curious 'patch take' of the shorter, swirling first version of the harpsichord cadenza to No 5. There is also a pleasingly unhyperbolic DVD of the sessions including interviews with Alessandrini.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

*** Penguin Guide

“In general Rilling steers a secure middle course between Scylla and Charybdis, between the leaden interpretations that were all too common at one time and the whizz-kid treatment. There are, however, some performances here which don’t quite come off - parts of No.3 are a bit lumpen, for example” MusicWeb International, January 2013