Word: harnoncourt
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Telefunken recordings (SA WT 9059-10) of the J.S. Bach orchestral suites are a superb example of how musicological scholarship has radically transformed performance. Played by the Concentus Musicus of Vienna, the suites are led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, an excellent viola da gambist and brilliant musicologist...
Coupled with the actual instrumentation, Harnoncourt's group has devoted great energy to proper embellishments of the parts and such details as correct bowing technique for accurate phrasing. The effect is startling. When the initial awe of hearing the new sound is overcome, more and more the conviction sinks in that this is what the baroque sound must have been like. Harnoncourt refuses to cut the length of the suites: he does not omit a single repeated section. This is an important consideration in the overtures, the first and largest movement of each suite. Standard procedure is to play...
...sensitivity and flexibility of the interpretation is astounding. The two bourrees of Suite No. 2 are usually done at one tempo. Harnoncourt easily could have selected what he considered the optimum tempo for a bourree and simply plunged through both of them with metronomical precision. Instead, he slows down the second bourree, allowing the solo flute to come out--and then returns to the opening tempo in the da capo. In the extensive program notes that come with the two discs, Harnoncourt explains this by characterizing one bouree as stuermische and the other as delikate; and he plays them accordingly...