How many Sinfonias concertante did J. C. Bach write? Grove lists 15, plus four 'doubtful', Ernest Warburton's more recent catalogue lists 18 and gives them a new numbering system—by which they are identified in the booklet, the 'T' numbers above refer to the Terry catalogue which is quoted by Grove. Either way, they have for the most part been bypassed by recording groups, though manuscripts and published editions have been available for some time. In this sense they are, as Ross Pople says in his note, ''a particularly significant and exciting discovery''. When he was 19 Bach went to Italy to study and remained there until 1762, when he took up a good offer to work in London, settling there and, with C. F. Abel establishing the Bach / Abel concerts for which the Sinfonias concertante were written, probably in the early 1770s. The genre with its use of two or more soloists, appealed to Bach's love of orchestral colour, wind instruments are either among the soloists or included (often in pairs) in the small accompanying orchestra, and solos are not only for the named soloist. Four of the Sinfonias (two in this recording) have two movements, the others three, the last usually a minuet or the like, after the fashion of the time. To describe the music as elegant and entertaining is correct but it often has a surprise up its sleeve.
Each of the two alternative versions of the A major work is coupled with a spurious cello concerto, and I share SS's strong reservations concerning Zukerman / Ma (CBS). The Turovskys (Chandos) do rather better but are no match for Friedman / Pople, nor does either orchestra come close to the LFO in bright-eyed alertness and clear grasp of style. This new, crisply recorded, unmixed (all Bach) programme is the one to go for, focused on a 'new' corpus of serenade-like music of high quality, rather than on virtuosos who are less than well suited to this particular field. Buy and enjoy.'