Bach: works for solo violin

[Nachtigall]

Though the possessor of many recordings of violin concertos I suppose I've always had a certain prejudice against the unaccompanied violin, believing that a little goes a long way. I wonder if anyone else feels the same?

However, I've been listening to Sergey Khachatryan's newly released recording of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin and I must say if anything could convert a doubter this certainly can. The piano is my instrument and I'm no expert when it comes to judging a violin performance. But this is exquisite, marvellous, heady stuff!

There's plenty of Khachatryan to sample on YouTube too, fortunately:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdzGKR0KUC0&feature=channel

[Pianorak]

. . . a little goes a long way. I wonder if anyone else feels the same?

Yep - I do. And the same goes for the solo cello. *ducks and runs for cover*

[DracoM]

No. Fully understand your feeling about them, and I used to feel a bit as you do, but not any more.

The Bach partitas and sonatas for solo violin are a source of constant wonder for me. I bought the Naxos albums a year ago and they have always been somewhere on the 'to play' stack. Age cannot wither them etc.

[french frank]

One of the few discs (John Holloway's) I could play over and over completely several times in a row. (And not for background listening either.)

[Zucchini]

Julia Fischer played the sonatas and partitas magnificently in 2 lunchtime recitals broadcast from the Wigmore Hall last year. Seamless, effortless and very, very beautiful throughout. I recorded to CDs and (unusually for me) play them regularly in wonderment.

[Don Petter]

Interestingly, regarding the various Bach solo works, I felt rather out of sympathy with the violin ones until relatively recently, though for many years I have loved the ‘cello suites. Perhaps this was because of being introduced to four of the latter by the Starker performances on two Saga LPs. The other two then followed naturally.

As it happens, I have just bought a CD of Ricci playing some of the sonatas and partitas, so I am catching up at last.

[kernelbogey]

I've come late to Bach, and have only just begun to appreciate him fully. A bit like discovering fino sherry when one has only drunk amontillado before. I bought the Imbragimova recording of the sonatas and partitas, and I find the music, and her playing, wonderful.

[Tapiola]

I learnt these astonishing works many years ago from the Menuhin recordings from the 1930s (and now on Naxos). The Gigue from the D minor Partita for which Nachtigall provided a link at the start of this thread represents for me the summit of what music is or can be. For me, it transcends its nominal dance movement origins and takes flight - the pure, distilled essence of music in a single, unharmonised, melodic line, beyond subjectivity. It is abstract spirit. The music of the angels.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

- the pure, distilled essence of music in a single, unharmonised, melodic line, beyond subjectivity. It is abstract spirit. The music of the angels.

if i may, seconded.....


what do people make of Rachel Podger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3mwbnUBBKs

[Roehre]

For me, it transcends its nominal dance movement origins and takes flight - the pure, distilled essence of music in a single, unharmonised, melodic line, beyond subjectivity. It is abstract spirit. The music of the angels.

Seconded (or thirded) as well, though my thoughts/associations are more white, snowy and sunny landscapes under a clear blue sky.

but I'd like to make three remarks regarding solo-works for violin (or cello), with Bach's as the point of departure.

"a single, unharmonised, melodic line": yes, on paper undoubtedly true. But listening to it, it IS harmonized intrinsically. That's where (in this case) Bach's genius takes us, IMO most brilliantly in the chaconne form the 2nd Sonata. There he not only uses the chaconne form for a solo instrument, but suggests more than one instrument as well as more than one harmonic structure at one and the same time. so: it is basically one melody which Bach gives us, but the intricacies of that one melody are multiple.

My second remark: Why did the Romantic era produce hardly any serious music for solo violin (or cello or -even more rare- viola), apart from some virtuoso pieces, as e.g. Paganini's or Ysaye's solo works.
This is related to the thoughts about this type of work as e.g. Schumann's. He made piano accompaniments to all of the six Bach solo-violin works, basically to underscore :) the intrinsic harmonies which Bach suggested in his melodic writing (see my remark above), but literally did not score.
The musical approach had changed, and I for one originally did not like the pieces either (makes many of us), but that's a long time ago.

finally: It is interesting (for me at least), to observe that the 20C solo works (for any of the string instruments: Bartok, Reger, Britten, Hindemith, Schnabel, Zimmermann, Berio to name but some) are less prone to those observations we made regarding the Bach works: more engaging, less pure perhaps?????

[Martin]

There's plenty of harmony in unaccompanied Bach. Sometimes it is articulated with spread chords, but a lot of the time the harmony is implied (an accepted scholarly term, is it not?) and can fairly easily be extracted by looking or listening to the set of notes in a particular phrase. Indeed, that is the precise reason why unaccompanied Bach is so satisfying to listen to or to play: because it is as full of harmonic direction as any other (baroque) masterwork.

[Tapiola]

I suppose what I meant by "single, unharmonised, melodic line" was to mark that Gigue as distinct from, for example, the Sarabande and the Chaconne of the same Partita, in that Bach does not resort to multiple stopping in order to achieve the effect he wants. Surely any unharmonised melodic line in tonal music is going to be suggestive of "implied" harmony, given the conditioned ear of the Western listener.

[Thropplenoggin]

I only have Rachel Podger (Channel Classics) on a Baroque violin in these works.

I found the Holloway recording a bit too saturated in reverb.

Isabelle Faust (Harmonia Mundi) has been very well received, including making it on the CD Review 'discs of the year' show yesterday. I'm not sure if she is HIP or not. I've also heard good things about Alina Ibragimova. Does anyone have any thoughts on these two violinists in these works?

*EDIT*

The Faust recording seems quite plagued by "heavy breathing" in a few clips I've heard. Something also raised by various reviews, but not McGregor & Co. on yesterday's CD Review (where Faust has been a guest) nor in Gramophone. I think that with solo instrumental work, such noises can be distracting.

Perhaps Viktoria Mullova's Onyx recording is a safer bet?

[gurnemanz]

Gidon Kremer puts on a virtuoso show in the solo Partitas and Sonatas - my only version so I can't compare. I see they have just been re-issued on Double Decca.

[MickyD]

It's Rachel Podger for me.