G.F. Händel: Water Music - Akademie für alte Musik Berlin:
Fabulous! If I could could give it six stars (and anybody cared), I would. Beautiful and spirited playing of this wonderful music. Truth is, I have never been a huge fan of the "period instrument" movement for some of the very reasons that I didn't like the French orchestra's performance. This is special. The period instruments display their unique timbres and overall "softer" tones; but, when appropriate, these players dig in and play them with real verve and without the often heard sense that there is something unusually precious about these period instruments or the way they are supposed to be played. Fabulous baroque oboe, baroque flute and natural horn playing (would like to know Learsfool's take on the latter). Excellent intonation and section to section balance (!) overall.
There is something special, when it works, about a conductorless orchestra. In this case the "conductor" is the concert master. Players are forced (a good thing) to listen to each other with a level of care that is not always the case when there is a conductor's beat to follow. Some really magical things can happen as a resuIt. It doesn't always work and in no way should the role of a great conductor be underestimated. This definitely works.
They are standing as was common practice at the time the music was composed. Not all are standing; only the ones who can. I don't know that this is the same performance that would be on the disc as I read a reference to the one on the disc having been recorded in a studio. Harmonia Mundi recording is a sure bet that it will be great sounding and no reason to expect that it would not be a performance at least as good as the one heard on this video.
Loved it. Thanks and will be ordering it myself.
Fabulous! If I could could give it six stars (and anybody cared), I would. Beautiful and spirited playing of this wonderful music. Truth is, I have never been a huge fan of the "period instrument" movement for some of the very reasons that I didn't like the French orchestra's performance. This is special. The period instruments display their unique timbres and overall "softer" tones; but, when appropriate, these players dig in and play them with real verve and without the often heard sense that there is something unusually precious about these period instruments or the way they are supposed to be played. Fabulous baroque oboe, baroque flute and natural horn playing (would like to know Learsfool's take on the latter). Excellent intonation and section to section balance (!) overall.
There is something special, when it works, about a conductorless orchestra. In this case the "conductor" is the concert master. Players are forced (a good thing) to listen to each other with a level of care that is not always the case when there is a conductor's beat to follow. Some really magical things can happen as a resuIt. It doesn't always work and in no way should the role of a great conductor be underestimated. This definitely works.
They are standing as was common practice at the time the music was composed. Not all are standing; only the ones who can. I don't know that this is the same performance that would be on the disc as I read a reference to the one on the disc having been recorded in a studio. Harmonia Mundi recording is a sure bet that it will be great sounding and no reason to expect that it would not be a performance at least as good as the one heard on this video.
Loved it. Thanks and will be ordering it myself.