Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Brandenburg Concerto no. 5 in D major, BWV1050

On their farewell Asian tour, András Schiff and his group Cappella Andrea Barca offer a programme of Bach's keyboard concertos performed in the spirit and style of chamber music.

A fascinating traversal of all six concertos in all their colourful variety given compelling performances by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at The Anvil. 

French pianist David Fray with the Royal Northern Sinfonia challenges orthodoxy in blisteringly fast Bach and darkly imagined Mozart.

With the audience sitting on stage with the performers and in the choir loft, this feels like the kind of communal experience that Bach would have recognized.

All six concertos in one evening at Milton Court, presented with verve and talent by the Academy of Ancient Music and Laurence Cummings. 

For a year and a half since their European tour was cut short due to the outbreak of the pandemic, Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan have been grounded in Japan, performing domestically despite restrictions.

After Bach and Brett Dean, the LPO gave Stravinsky’s Pulcinella a ride in their musical Rolls-Royce... and it gleamed.

Ares, Butt, Egarr and Foster play brilliantly, but they're at their best when there's no orchestra.

Bach on modern instruments: superbly played but inconsistent

The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra celebrates the beginning of its 30th season with a fittingly chosen programme.

Continuing a decades-long holiday season tradition, the SPCO presents five of Bach's six Brandenburg Concerti in performances brimming with energy and élan.

A rare opportunity to hear the complete Brandenburgs was awarded by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in a distinguished performance, with Huw Daniel its leading light.

A strong thunderstorm delayed the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s Blossom Music Center debut, but despite their fine playing, the venue proved too large.

Performing a complete cycle of Brandenburg Concertos in one evening may take less time than a Wagner opera, but it is equally an epic undertaking for any Baroque ensemble.

Jeanette Sorrell and her Cleveland Baroque band Apollo’s Fire are renowned for their inventive programming and “A Night at Bach’s Coffeehouse”, with guest soloist Alina Ibragimova, deftly offered a balanced musical diet. 

A hit in its hometown, Apollo's Fire is making believers on the festival circuit both in the US and abroad this summer.

Worlds apart from those interpretations where Bach's expressivity is left to speak for itself, tonight's approach provided a complementary carapace that navigated us through Bach's score in unexpected ways.

It can’t be often that one of the world’s pre-eminent Bach scholar-interpreters teams up with one of the world’s most famous period instrument ensembles to give a concert dedicated to one of the world’s most celebrated composers in one of the world’s most renowned acoustics.

Baroque music is pretty old, isn’t it? But the great thing is, you don’t have to have the advanced years of a Brandenburg Concerto to put it on. The Oxford Philomusica has been active for little more than a decade – and they rushed through the pouring rain to play at the similarly young St George’s Bristol.

If you love Bach – and who doesn’t? – Birmingham was the place to be this weekend, for a delicious series of concerts, lectures and discoveries at the Town Hall and Symphony Hall under the heading ‘Bach: A Beautiful Mind’.

There's nothing like a Brandenburg to blow away Christmas cobwebs. Alongside contrasting cantatas, the Dunedin Consort offered the 3rd and 5th from Bach's 1721 set of six concerti grossi. This made for a compact and nicely balanced programme, contrasting the sacred with the secular and vocal with purely instrumental timbres.

The Dunedin Consort and Players is running a series of three concerts over the coming months, each programming two of Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos interspersed with two Cantatas. Although strictly speaking still in Advent, when Leipzig frowned on elaborate church music, a large crowd turned out to hear this imaginative all-Bach programme for this Christmas season in Perth Concert Hall.

The London Handel Players should be applauded for many things, from their characteristically warm and full sound through to their consistently thoughtful approach to how they play.

À la tête de ses Musiciens de Saint-Julien, François Lazarevitch propose une intégrale des six concertos brandebourgeois qui ne manque pas de virtuosité mais a fortement tendance à courir.

El Festival de Santander se acerca a su fin con los Conciertos de Brandeburgo a cargo del conjunto Akademie für Alte Musik de Berlín.

El conjunto francés Café Zimmermann presentó en el ciclo Universo Barroco los seis Conciertos de Brandeburgo de Johann Sebastian Bach, una magnífica manera de celebrar el aniversario del compositor.

La Universidad Autónoma de Madrid rinde homenaje a Francisco Tomás y Valiente con un programa integrado por los seis conciertos de Brandeburgo de Bach capitaneados por la dirección y el clave de John Butt. 

Die Brandburgischen Konzerte gefielen durch äußerst beschwingte Spiellust des Ensembles Collegium 1704, während in der Hitze des Gefechts einige Unstimmigkeiten passierten.

« Y aurait-il quelque part un mécène capable d’entendre notre appel ? » lit-on dans nos programmes de salle. Tel est sans doute le vœu originel qui sous-tendait ce concert de la Petite Bande à Gaveau...

L’Ensemble Baroque de l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, après une merveilleuse Alcina a un peu déçu sans pour autant démériter. La musique de Bach reste d’une puissance telle, qu’elle reste fascinante par sa structure et les émotions qu’elle suscite.

La volonté de l'ensemble Dissonances de présenter  une partie de ses œuvres profanes, dont un des célèbres Concertos brandebourgeois, permettait de découvrir une autre facette de ce musicien, où l’élan religieux est remplacé par une spiritualité profane, toute aussi forte.