Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Johann Sebastian Bach
Label: Dyad
Magazine Review Date: 8/1997
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 133
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CDD22009
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (3) Sonatas and 3 Partitas |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Elizabeth Wallfisch, Violin Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
Author: Lionel Salter
Bach’s Solo Sonatas and Partitas – the former with a fugue as the second of their four movements, the latter with anything from four to six dance forms (each, in the case of the B minor, with a double) – present violinists with one of their greatest challenges. Beyond their formidable technical difficulties of intonation and quasi-polyphonic texture, there is a need to penetrate to the music’s expressive essence and capture the different Affekts of the movements. Of the 20 or so recordings now current, several manage to combine these desiderata (though some famous names fall short): only one player, Sigiswald Kuijken, uses a baroque violin, and now Elizabeth Wallfisch sets out to emulate him. An early music specialist with a sense of period style (and with quite a few well-received discs behind her), she goes for sober readings, abjuring any additional ornamentation except (like Kuijken) in the E major Loure. She adopts a lower pitch (A=400) and employs vibrato more sparingly than he; she digs deeper into the string, making her tone notably less warm and mellifluous; her line is apt to become bumpy, and she often seems to be having to work hard to maintain a steady rhythm and a flowing continuity – which (as is heard in the G minor’s Fugue, the B minor’s Bourree and the C major’s Adagio) is not helped by the spread-out meal she makes of triple and quadruple stoppings. In the movements without multiple stops she appears more at ease, and her light spiccato double of the B minor’s Corrente is delicious, though the much-varied articulation she brings to, for example, the double of its Allemande focuses attention more on the technique employed than on the musical content.
Wallfisch’s tempos, not very different from Kuijken’s, are convincing, save for a too slow C major Fugue, which begins to feel interminable, and a somewhat scurried E major Preludio. The most troublesome work for her is the A minor Sonata: the Grave lacks cohesion, the Fugue sags, and the Andante is heavy-going and laboured. Nor does the great D minor Ciaccona fare very well, with a jerky start, some inconsistency over double-dotting, a sudden drag to the speed at the turn into the major, and intonation that is sometimes uneasy; but the Corrente and Gigue in the same work have an attractive springiness, and the E major Gigue has a real lift.
In short, an honourable try at these masterworks, but not one to displace Kuijken’s recording, or indeed the best by artists on modern instruments.'
Wallfisch’s tempos, not very different from Kuijken’s, are convincing, save for a too slow C major Fugue, which begins to feel interminable, and a somewhat scurried E major Preludio. The most troublesome work for her is the A minor Sonata: the Grave lacks cohesion, the Fugue sags, and the Andante is heavy-going and laboured. Nor does the great D minor Ciaccona fare very well, with a jerky start, some inconsistency over double-dotting, a sudden drag to the speed at the turn into the major, and intonation that is sometimes uneasy; but the Corrente and Gigue in the same work have an attractive springiness, and the E major Gigue has a real lift.
In short, an honourable try at these masterworks, but not one to displace Kuijken’s recording, or indeed the best by artists on modern instruments.'
Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin
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