Bach’s concertos for multiple harpsichords and orchestra are beloved by some and drive others crazy. Perhaps no other music so graphically illustrates Beecham’s famous description of the sound of the solo instrument as “two skeletons copulating on a tin roof.” The performers must exercise great care in selecting instruments that are not too “clangy” sounding, and the recording has to balance a need for warmth and roundness of tone with contrapuntal clarity. In fact, most of this music was originally composed for melody instruments (violin and oboe, principally), and Naxos has obligingly reconstructed the original versions on another disc in this excellent series.

One of the nicest things about Naxos’ complete survey of Bach’s orchestral music is that each disc always includes a substantial musical “bonus” that distinguishes it from the numerous competing performances available. In this case, conductor Helmut Müller-Brühl and his intrepid band of keyboard and string players offer a reconstruction of the Concerto for Three Harpsichords BWV 1064 in its original version for three violins. Comparison of the two versions is fascinating, not least because the players offer a fractionally more expansive tempo in the slow movement of the violin version, acknowledging the stringed instrument’s superior ability to sustain a long, lyrical melody.

Bach’s D minor Concerto BWV 1052 is one of his very greatest works, whether heard in its arrangements for harpsichord solo, violin solo, or even organ solo (first movement) as the prelude to one of the church cantatas. The music has a brooding, almost tragic intensity, partly the result of the tensely stern melodic material, partly due to the fact that all three movements are set in minor keys. It’s also a very large work, at more than 20 minutes one of the largest of all Baroque concertos. Robert Hill gives a stunning performance of the work here, comparable to the great recording by his mentor and teacher, Gustav Leonhardt. Unlike many period instrument people, Hill’s refusal to rush the outer movements gives the music an extra measure of grim strength, and his deft passagework allows every Bachian note to register with unforced clarity.

What you will hear is a performance and recording that is not unlike 'The Stokowski Sound.' Deep, rich and firm bass line, smooth strings and lushness around. The soloists are as romantic. The second movement of the double concerto is a love duet. It has a beauty that literally arrests you.

To start their series of the complete orchestral music of Bach, in this 250th anniversary year, Naxos kicks off with a superb set of concertos for oboe and oboe d'amore. These are lost scores but are believed to have been used by Bach for other instruments, including the well-known harpsichord concertos. Whatever their provenance, Christian Hommell and the Cologne Chamber Orchestra under Helmut Mueller-Bruehl play them with great style and virtuosity. A delightfully different disc that is most entertaining.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732–95) was the third of the musical “sons of Bach” in order of birth, but he has been overshadowed by his older brothers Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emmanuel, and his younger sibling, Johann Christian. The neglect is perhaps understandable. JCF was the least individual of the lot in personality and the most subject to outside influences (even by his younger brother). He spent most of his career in a small and backwater court, at Buckeburg, subject to the whims of his princely employer—though he was able to work there with the distinguished poet and linguist Johann Gottfried Herder.