This CD couples parts of three masterpieces for the first time: Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto” No. 5 and No. 1 of his Orchestral Suites together with Suite Nr. 1 from Handel’s “Water Music”. Right from the start, Concerto Köln make their approach to the music audible in the tuning of their instruments: their Brandenburg Concerto uses the lower tuning (392Hz) of Bach’s time. Involvement with “early music” is never an end in itself, then, but a way to achieve a deeper understanding of the music by performers and listeners alike.
Lorenzo Alpert, Artistic Director of Concerto Köln, explains this symbiosis: “Our intensive engagement over the last 30 years with composers, music theorists and contemporaries from the time of Bach and Handel, all of whom have contributed to the vitality of Baroque musical life, opens up new vistas for us as we approach the works of these two great masters. And yet the knowledge we have gained would be of no avail if we failed to make it audible by showing how we are moved by the magic of discovery and the passion for research. What a joy to recreate a sound that seemed lost for ever!”