Bach's three surviving violin concertos--the A minor, E major, and D minor ("double")--have long enjoyed standard repertoire status, and their continued popularity with audiences has made them fair game for almost every violinist of note with a recording contract. Fortunately for listeners, these works generally have been treated extremely well and the catalog consistently offers numerous fine performances, on both period and modern instruments. These new performances, featuring three outstanding young violinists, are part of Naxos' ongoing traversal of the "complete orchestral works of Bach", and they easily hold their own among the far more illustrious competition. Kolja Blacher, who performs the solo concertos, is a brilliant and commanding presence who makes Bach's not-to-be-taken-lightly lines really sing and dance and occasionally spark. His colleagues, Christine Pichlmeier and Lisa Stewart, deliver a D minor "double concerto" that's both agile and lyrical. The interplay is a real dialogue, especially rich through the second movement suspensions and dissonances, and especially exciting in the stretto-filled third movement.


Most Bach violin recordings fill out the program with one of the harpsichord concerto reconstructions--that is, a piece that modern scholarship suggests originally was a violin concerto but that Bach later reworked and for which the violin original is now lost. Here we get the D minor concerto BWV 1052, a famous harpsichord piece that is rarely performed in this version, and that in the hands of Blacher and his Cologne partners sounds every bit like it belongs with the rest of Bach's violin masterpieces.
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com