Andrew Parrott Pachelbel's Canon & Other Baroque Favorites

This recording focuses less on the music than on the performers: Andrew Parrott and the Taverner Consort, Choir and Players, which he founded 32 years ago. Under his direction, the group has achieved international acclaim and produced a large discography; this 2-CD set was compiled from its recordings of the 1980s and '90s, supplemented by a few numbers played by the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, also led by Parrott. The selections were clearly chosen to display the group to best advantage: its vocal and instrumental repertoire, technical polish, tonal beauty and balance, style, versatility, and expressiveness. The program has almost too much variety, consisting mostly of excerpts from longer works; indeed, four movements of Bach's D-major Suite are divided between the two discs. However, several concertos appear in their entirety and, in excellent performances, constitute the most substantial, musically rewarding parts of the set: Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto, a Harp Concerto by Handel, a Flute Concerto by Vivaldi and the "Spring" and "Summer" Violin Concertos from his "Four Seasons." Other instrumental highlights include the famous Pachelbel Canon--really a set of increasingly ornate variations on a ground bass--a glorious-sounding Sonata for brass by Gabrieli and several arresting, beautiful pieces by Purcell. Some of the program's "favorites" are better known in a different guise, such as the Sinfonia from a Bach Cantata, which he adapted from the Prelude of his third Partita for unaccompanied violin. The instrumental tuning alternates between normal and low; the reason is not explained, but the difference in timbre and resonance is immediately apparent even if one does not know the work's original key. The choral selections, with and without instruments, are all wonderful. Appropriately, the program begins with the bright opening chorus of Vivaldi's Gloria and closes with the heart-breaking final one of Bach's St. John Passion. --Edith Eisler