Quote Originally Posted by richmon
Bach's Brandenburg concertos are an excellent starting point, they're usually grouped 1-4 and 5-9 on seperate CD's, both are baroque masterpieces.

Wendy Carlo's did two Switched on Bach CD's that are interesting, JB's compositions played on the synthesiser. How the heck does one spell synthesiser anyway?
LOL I'm only aware of Six Brandenburg Concertos by J. S. Bach! I like Pinnock and the old Ristenpart ones which I have on LPs. But Pinnock is probably the most common recommendation nowadays, splendid performances and recordings.

Switched on Bach is often very interesting, for sure. I think "synthesizer" is the most common spelling but "synthesiser" is not wrong.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=synthesizer

The Bach Violin Concertos (Double VC and VC Nos. 1 and 2) are beautiful works. I like Francescatti but there are numerous others.

Christopher Parkening Plays Bach uses very nice arrangements for guitar.

Bach's Magnificat is a wonderful work for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. My old favorite, Prohaska on Vanguard, is very lively and not so super fast, but may sound harsh on many speakers.

As for Cantatas, nos. 4 and 140 are often coupled, both great works.

There are a number of collections of Bach organ works. Older reissues with Karl Richter and Helmut Walcha are fine but many may prefer modern digital recordings by Michael Murray, Peter Hurford, and so on. The four great Toccatas and Fugues, the Passacaglia and Fugue in c and the Schuebler Chorales are good places to start.

There are a number of orchestral transcriptions of Bach works. Mathias Bamert recorded all the Stokowski orchestral transcriptions on Chandos, and there is a good collection other transcriptions for orchestra by Respighi and others with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony on Delos.