Reviews

BACH Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin BWV1001–1006

PISENDEL Sonata for Solo Violin Amandine Beyer (violin)

ALPHA CLASSICS ALPHA610

Classy, light take on sonatas by Bach and his contemporary countryman

For some reason this set begins with the First Partita rather than the usual First Sonata, in which the opening Allemande displays many of the qualities of what follows. It is spacious and measured, with much subtlety of phrasing contained within its gentle simplicity. After the similarly unhurried Double the Courante is deft and fleet, but nonetheless using a considerable dynamic range. The Sarabande is meditative and quiet, the tripleand quadruple-stops rippling nicely – there is no chordal crunching here. The bourrée is sprightly and detached. This general lightness of touch persists through the set.

The opening grave of the A minor Sonata is lucid and intimate, and the great Fugue, like its cousins in the other two sonatas, has great shape and purpose maintained through its huge span, with exemplary clarity of counterpoint and balancing of parts. The Andante is masterly, with its beautifully moulded melody and steady pulsing quaver accompaniment. The Allemande, Courante and Gigue of the D minor Partita all sparkle, their contours fluidly shaped. In the great Chaconne there is a sense of organic growth and increasing purpose and energy before it relaxes into the warmth, and occasional drama, of the D major section. There is articulate lyricism in the Largo of the C major Sonata, and profound meditation in the Adagio of the G minor. The central movements of the E major are like courtly dances.

Pisendel’s Sonata is extrovert and entertaining, with some cheerfully exhibitionist doublestopping. Beyer is always technically superb. The recording is clean with a touch of resonance.

TIM HOMFRAY

BACH’S LONG SHADOW BACH Partita no.3 in E major BWV1006 YSAŸE Solo Violin Sonata op.27 no.2; Poco lento, maestoso (Sonata for Two Violins) 1 KREISLER Recitativo and Scherzo (arr. Loiseleur, Fullana) ALBÉNIZ Asturias TÁRREGA Recuerdos de la Alhambra (arr. Ricci)

Francisco Fullana (violin)

Stella Chen (violin) 1

ORCHID CLASSICS ORC100165

Imaginative and sometimes wild take on Bach and his solo violin legacy

Built on Bach’s legacy, Francisco Fullana’s enterprising programme explores various musical and personal interconnections. Fullana uses some ‘period’ tools in his account of Bach’s Third Partita (BWV1006) but adds, in repeated sections, extempore ornamentation that is intrusive and decidedly unhistorical. Nevertheless, his light bowing, phrasing and dynamic shading in the Preludio are engaging and his Loure has a pleasing lilt; but his slick tempos in the other dances and unusual E natural in Menuet II (bar 19) confirm his interpretation’s egocentricity

BWV1006 is metamorphosed into an obsessive virtuoso display in Ysaÿe’s Sonata op.27 no.2, Fullana interpreting its striking outer movements as if a madman. He also brings the morbid Dies irae theme consistently into focus and characterises the third movement’s variations with flair and imagination.

Fullana’s Spanish ancestry is celebrated in arrangements of Albéniz’s Asturias and Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra, the latter less successfully realised in a hiccuplike interpretation seemingly lacking fluency and control. However, he dispatches Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo with the requisite solemnity, drama and virtuosity and encores (partnering Stella Chen) with an intensely sonorous opening movement of Ysaÿe’s Sonata for Two Violins. Fullana’s liner notes combine philosophical, poetic and nostalgic sentiments and his 1735 ‘Kreisler’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ benefits from natural, warm recorded sound.

ROBIN STOWELL

BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto SCHNITTKE Violin Concerto no.3 Vadim Gluzman (violin) Lucerne Symphony Orchestra/James Gaffigan

BIS BIS-2392 (HYBRID SACD)

Poised performances threaded through with a sense of Russian melancholy

Alfred Schnittke wrote cadenzas for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto at the behest of Gidon Kremer, who famously described the devices as ‘open window[s] in the space of a composition’. That is precisely what Schnittke’s are, not in the least ill-fitting or bizarre (as some have claimed). The first includes a collage of quotes from violin concertos by Shostakovich, Brahms, Berg and Bartók, all of them ‘motivically justified’, to borrow from Horst A.