Café Zimmermann - J.S. Bach: Concerts avec plusieurs instruments, Vol. 3 (2007)

Every one of the six volumes of Café Zimmermann's recordings of Bach's "Concerts avec plusiers instruments" is absolutely excellent. The music is all magnificent and played with a freshness combined with depth of understanding which is a real joy. You may like to know that they have now been issued as a set J.S. Bach: Concertos with Several Instruments Complete Works Vol. I-VI which I recommend in the strongest possible terms.

Café Zimmermann are a small ensemble, generally playing with one instrument to a part and this, combined with terrific musicianship and scholarship, gives their interpretations a real zing in the livelier movements and genuine beauty and emotion in the slower passages. To me, this is what Bach should sound like: sometimes dancing, sometimes deeply spiritual, sometimes simply lovely. I have a much-loved set of Bach concertos by Trevor Pinnock Bach: Concertos and while these won't replace them in my affections, they will certainly stand alongside them and be played at least as often.

The other great strength of these discs is the programming. Many sets of these concertos group, say, the harpsichord concertos or the violin concertos together, and I find that I often don't want to listen to all of them one after another. Here, each disc has one of the Brandenburg Concertos and a varied combination of other concertos, so that playing the whole disc is a varied pleasure and I am always happy to let a whole disc play rather than changing it after one or two concertos.

This disc, like all the rest, is an unalloyed delight and guaranteed to give immense pleasure for many years. Very warmly recommended.