MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Support us financially by purchasing
this through MusicWeb
for £10 plus postage.

Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C, BWV1066 [18:59]
Violin Concerto in E, BWV1042 [17:30]
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, Air [4:12]
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Divertimento in D, K205 [15:54]
Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809)
Symphony No. 6 in D, Hob.1:6 (Le Matin) [17:07]
Bach Orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus / Gerhard Bosse
rec. live, Camden Theatre, London, October 1966
ORCHESTRAL CONCERT CDs CD8/2009 [73:44]

This CD is of particular significance because the orchestra rarely appears under this name nowadays. Indeed, I cannot find any mention of them anywhere. Essentially, we have members of the Gewandhaus Orchestra who get together periodically to play baroque music. Their founder, Gerhard Bosse, who died in Japan just a few years ago, was an important figure in the Gewandhaus. He served for many years both in the rank and file and as Concertmaster. He also performed as part of the famous Gewandhaus String Quartet. To add to his achievements, in 1963 he formed this subgroup of his colleagues specifically to perform earlier music. They do not use period instruments but do conform to period practice as far as they can. When this concert took place in 1966, they were only in their third year of performing together. With ears coloured by the period orchestras of the current age, especially the leading German group, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the performance style still sounds distinctly old-fashioned, with some lugubriously slow tempi particularly in the Bach Suite No. 1. Overall I feel they are at their most attractive in the early Haydn Symphony Le Matin, which they dispatch with considerable brio as well as beauty of sound. Bosse himself plays the solo part in Bach's great Concerto BWV1042 and, excess vibrato apart, it is lovely to hear. Bosse did not continue with the group beyond the 1980s. They are now active under another prestigious Leipzig musician Christian Funke. I say 'active' but have failed to find evidence more recent than 2014.

This recording, made at the Camden Theatre, a venue used for years by the BBC as a radio studio, is clear and well spread left to right, simply reproducing the sound as heard from the centre of the stalls. The venue still exists under the name of 'Koko' but some idea of the original auditorium can be obtained from photographs on the Arthur Lloyd website. This goes some way toward explaining the slightly enclosed sound that the microphones receive. It is all very real and, as a record of past performance style, it is of considerable interest. The audience are fairly restrained during the music and greet the concert with justified enthusiasm.

Dave Billinge



Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing