BACH: 6 Brandenburg Concertos (1953 Aldeburgh Festival Opening Concert) - Britten, English Chamber Orchestra (2 CDs)

Britten’s stately and clear-sighted readings of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos begin a program that continues with a group of rarities. Much requested and finally available on CD, is the complete 1953 Opening Concert of the Aldeburgh Festival in which Britten and Imogen Holst shared the conducting honours. In addition to the anthems (in which the soloists include Alfred Deller), there is ‘Sellinger’s Round’, based on a theme by William Byrd with a series of variations by a range of British composers, including Tippett, Walton, Searle and Britten himself. The disc is completed with four ‘encores’ that formed an EP issued by Decca. From Adrian Boult’s Handel sessions with Kenneth McKellar come the Air from Suite No. 3 and ‘Sheep may safely graze’. The second side of the EP was taken up by Britten’s hushed arrangement of the English National Anthem and a blazing performance of Clarke’s ‘Trumpet Voluntary’, complete with the Trumpeters of Kneller Hall. JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: Brandenburg Co