Canter Bridge

While living in Costa Rica, my only convenient place to buy classical CDs was a bookstore that was heavy into the Philips Duo package. As a result, I now own many recordings in this series. Nobody beats Philips Duo for producing affordable recordings of venerable performances at the highest artistic and technical standards.

I musici playing all of Bach’s Brandenburg and Violin concerti is no exception. The oldest performances on this double-CD set are a half-century old. Yet they sound as crisp and clear as you’d hear them this evening in the concert hall. That’s simply awesome.

Bach is played here with a kind of competent serenity. This is untroubled, deeply satisfying music performed by a consort that made itself a household name among Baroque music lovers for readings that are both superb and conventional in the best sense of both words.

You might want to own a second recording of these pieces, deeply engrained in the standard repertoire as they are. But you’ll not find a better first recording than this set.