Those of us who have the recordings of Bach's 6 Brandenburg Concertos by Karl Ristenpart and the Chamber of the Saar (early '60s) seem to value them highly. I was afraid to play them too often for fear of damaging the Nonesuch LPs, and usually listened to the excellent recordings by Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert from 1982.

I recently got Ristenpart's and the COS's CD box set with the Art of the Fugue, the 4 Orchestral Suites, the 6 Brandenburg Concertos, and some miscellaneous concertos, Accord 465 893-2. The cover is in French, but don't worry, there are notes in English in the CD booklet.

http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Oeuvres-p...1542562&sr=1-1

The Brandenburgs are quite wonderful and the sound is great. The performances have an easy, relaxed and fun feel, very well played but not so obviously precise as Pinnock. I have always enjoyed them. I find it difficult to explain just why I like them so much but they are sincere and unpretentious. In the 6th Concerto, the performers include Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute, and Robert Veyron-Lacroix, harpsichord.

They play the orchestration of the Art of the Fugue made for them by Marcel Bitsch and Claude Pascal. It's certainly beautiful stuff, and is said to be musically very profound, up there with Bach's A Musical Offering. The liner notes say it received a Grand prix du disque in 1967.

The 4 Orchestral Suites were recorded a few years earlier in 1961. The recording is pretty good, though the upper strings sound a little thin, which can be ameliorated with some treble cut (the "Tilt" control is one reason I got a Quad 44 preamp in the early '90s). They are quite well done. Maurice Andre, trumpet, appears in the 3rd Suite. I prefer them to the modern digital recordings by Roy Goodman and the Brandenburg Consort, though I might give a slight edge to the old recordings by Menuhin and the Bath Festival Chamber Orchestra on two Seraphim LPs--or maybe not, it's close.

I also got the complete Tchaikovsky Symphonies recorded by Mariss Jansons and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestral in a Chandos box set, quite a famous recording. I had never gotten the first 3 symphonies, and the price was right. so I got the whole set. I haven't listened to it very often, but the performances seem to be at least as good as any others I have ever heard. The sound quality is excellent.