Right from the opening of the imposing D minor concerto BWV 1052, which features keyboard soloist Richard Egarr making odd little rhythmic hiccups that sound like bad edits, you know this set will have problems. Actually, the whole project turns out to have been misconceived from the beginning. The fact that Bach’s string lines can be played one person per part does not mean that they should be. In his Italian concerto, Bach demonstrated that the Baroque ideal of concerto form could be accommodated to a single instrument (albeit one with two keyboards), but the simple fact is that every one of these pieces is conceived in terms of the solo/tutti opposition of solo to massed strings. Absent this contrast, not only do the music’s formal outlines blur, but extended listening becomes dully fatiguing.
Take the opening movement of the E major concerto (BWV 1053), which begins with a theme that sounds positively radiant when sung out by a (comparatively) full string section. Here and in the same concerto’s finale, Egarr, playing what sounds like a “Mack truck” of a harpsichord, dominates the texture to such an extent that the distinction between orchestral ritornello and solo is all but lost. A full string section also provides dynamic contrast, critical in any concerto featuring the unyielding tone of the harpsichord. Turning back to BWV 1052’s slow movement, has its opening ritornello ever sounded so inexpressively “in your face” as here? Or consider the F major concerto’s first movement (the one based on Brandenburg Concerto No. 4), where even simple trills in Egarr’s right hand threaten to overwhelm the melody carried by the flute!
Andrew Manze and the dubiously credited Academy of Ancient Music (“dubiously” because when you only use four or five players, that’s not an “academy”–it’s a quartet or quintet so you might as well come clean and identify them all as soloists) play with typical energy, but also with an oppressive lack of flexibility no doubt partially caused by their desire to balance Egarr’s lawn-mower-like solos. Recorded sound that keeps everyone up front and equally loud all the time makes for a distressingly crude and ultimately unpleasant listening experience. These players have done such good work in the past that we can only hope this release proves to be an aberration and not a harbinger of things to come. What may have looked like a good idea on paper (Bach’s harpsichord concertos are actually not all that over-represented by major artists on disc, comparatively speaking) turned out to be a bad idea in practice.
