Florilegium have called their latest release ‘A Musical Offering’, which is nice, if potentially misleading. In fact, we do get the superb Trio Sonata for flute, violin and continuo from The Musical Offering, together with the six-part Ricercar performed as an ensemble piece. But the purpose of the disc is actually to give us Bach’s ‘complete instrumental trio sonatas’, by which is meant BWV1038 for flute, violin and continuo, BWV1039 for two flutes and continuo, the Musical Offering Sonata, and BWV1037 for two violins and continuo, thought these days to be by Bach’s pupil Goldberg, but in its own right sufficiently Bachian in most ways to be worthy of its place among the other works. Thus, these are all ‘true’ trio sonatas in their original scoring (as far as one can ever tell with Bach), with no arrangers’ tricks, transferrals of lines to keyboard or other instrumental substitutions to confuse anyone.
Florilegium perform them all with taste, refinement and considerable ensemble expertise. Overall, however, there often seems to be something of a lack of sparkle and brilliance, both to the interpretations and to the sound the group produces. The choice of organ instead of harpsichord in BWV1039 and BWV1037 does not really help (the fat, rumbly penultimate chord of the first movement of BWV1039 is not at all pleasant), and the line-up of recorder (Solomon), flute, violin, viola (Podger), viola da gamba (Yeadon) and organ for the Ricercar is a rather murky one, especially when compared to the warmer, more sumptuous (and somehow more Bachian) combination employed by Sonnerie in their recording of the complete Musical Offering (Virgin, 7/96 – nla). The Trio Sonata from the same work is likewise less attractive here than Sonnerie’s version, yet at the same time less rhetorically gripping than Musica ad Rhenum’s (Vanguard, 11/96). The other sonatas fare better, however, which is all to the good, since it is presumably for these that most people would want to buy the disc. Perhaps the most successful overall is BWV1037, where there is real life in the faster movements, but both the other sonatas have their moments as well. This is certainly a worthwhile bringing-together of some excellent music (currently no other recording offers all these works together), but it does not strike me as unsurpassable.'