This represents the completion of the ECO's full set of Brandenburg Concertos. In my review of the first disc (PCD830, 1/87) I suggested it as the best of the middle-of-the-road, budget-price CD versions—a commendation it now retains.
Broadly speaking, many of my comments on the first disc apply equally to the second: ''neat, nicely paced and without heaviness'', to which add ''stylistically respectful''. Why, though, use transverse flutes in Concerto No. 4 when the world is full of splendid recorder players? It isn't a question of 'authentic' or 'period' instruments (recorders come in 'ancient' and 'modern' forms), it's one of sonorities; smoothly though the traversi are played here they cannot match the affectionate cooing of their fipple cousins. The friendly chatter of the harpsichord is continuously in evidence but maybe not quite sufficiently so to match its status in Concerto No. 5: the virtuosic passage-work in the 14 bars leading up to the great solo senza stromenti is largely covered by the other instruments, even after the lower strings have departed—yet, so resonant are both the instrument and the acoustic that, at the peak of its activity, the cadenza (punctuated by rather too many ritardandos) becomes a wash of sound. All the soloists play with accuracy and sensitivity, Garcia earning an honourable mention for the fleet-fingered despatch of his part in Concerto No. 4. There are many good things in this set, not least the expressively played slow movements, and they are just enough to outweigh the negatives. The sound quality is more consistently good than the balance.'