Archiv Produktion released A Grand Concert of Musick in 1985, and the performances by Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert are a high point in the label's catalog. This album of concertos by John Stanley, Thomas Arne, Francesco Geminiani, Pieter Hellendaal, and Charles Avison, along with a symphony by William Boyce, provides a quick survey of some of the music that was popular in England in the late Baroque era. Performing on original instruments and led from the harpsichord by Pinnock, the ensemble plays with crisp articulation, vigorous bowing, and bright tone colors, and the strings are surrounded by a wonderful aural halo produced by resonant acoustics. Pinnock and the English Baroque Concert took pride not only in playing in authentic period style, but also in providing the historical context behind the music, so this program represents musical activity centered in London circa 1730, when the English national style was developing in the wake of Purcell and contemporaneously with Handel.
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