Paul Gent
The Telegraph
January 2010

This set of the six Brandenburg Concertos comes with John Eliot Gardiner’s name attached, but he conducts just two of them, the more complex Nos 1 and 2. In the rest he lets his band get on with it and the results, recorded at concerts in London and Paris last year, 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. In No 2, Neil Brough manages to make his silky high trumpet match the recorder of Rachel Beckett and the oboe of Michael Niesemann, but the players are not afraid to do the opposite when the music seems to require it, highlighting for example the unmannerly intrusion of rip-roaring horns into the civilised conversation of the strings and woodwind in No 1. Occasionally there’s an idiosyncrasy of the type that makes live performance so exciting but can be wearing upon repeated hearing, but it’s a small price to pay for these treasurable performances.

The Telegraph