The second volume of the Purcell Quartet’s complete Bach harpsichord concertos project contains, like the first (Chandos, 12/96), a mixture of works that survive only in their harpsichord versions (BWV1064, BWV1053) and those better known in their original scoring (BWV1058, transcribed from the A minor Violin Concerto, and BWV1065, the four-harpsichord concerto Bach adapted from Vivaldi’s Concerto for four violins from L’estro armonico). Multiple harpsichord concertos can be difficult things to balance convincingly, both in concert and on record; to use single strings, as here, is surely right, but even so it can be difficult for the harpsichords to make themselves heard properly. One begins to wonder how well it ever worked for Bach back in the 1730s. On this occasion, however, I would say that the Purcell Quartet and Chandos have got things pretty well right; certainly the problems in making the harpsichord soloists audible that LS noted in Vol. 1 have been sorted out without falling into the trap of over-compensation, and the effect is an entirely pleasing one in which the harpsichordists rest on a comfortably supportive bed of sweet string sound – surely as it should be.
The performances themselves are neat and tidy. The incisive articulation of principal soloist Robert Woolley may strike some listeners as a little choppy in places (for instance the slow movement of BWV1053), but it does help to provide the music with rhythmic momentum in the context of readings that refuse to indulge in any sensationalist tempos. Indeed, these are essentially uncontroversial performances whose only interpretative surprises reside in a few rather abrupt endings of final movements. I did find myself occasionally discomforted by uncertainties of tempo, but otherwise, if this is not exactly an urgent recommendation, it is certainly a safe one. '