Swiss baroque violinist Maya Homburger performs J.S. Bach’s Sonata No. 3 in C major and Partita No. 3 in E major, and Lysandra by English composer and bassist Barry Guy. It’s the last album in an imaginative 3-CD project by Homburger, each featuring one of Bach’s famous solos violin sonatas and one of his partitas, paired with especially commissioned new compositions by Guy.
“What started off as a project which I was planning for a three year period and wanted to perform and record in relatively quick succession has become something of a life long obsession,” says Maya Homburger. “To practise Bach, to start almost every day with one of his sonatas or partitas is a source of constant wonder and joy, of humility and respect. The search for tools, the search for enlightenment and deeper understanding of these unique pieces becomes the centre of ones violinistic being. I hope that this recording catches some of the fragility and tenderness within Bach’s Music as well as the powerful, intense and exuberant moments.”
Barry Guy’s Lysandra completes the set of three solo violin pieces written to sit in between Bach's solo violin masterpieces. Deliberately avoided is any paraphrasing of Bach's music, preferring to keep the language consistent with a pure research of the warm colours of the baroque violin and the intense expression associated with the instrument. Lysandra represents a somewhat more dramatic conclusion to the three pieces. Certain “leitmotivs” and techniques from the two previous pieces are alluded to, but within a more robust assertive scenario. Perhaps the summation of this more heroic stance is the inclusion of a fugato that tests the faculties of the violinist’s art and expresses Guy’s admiration for the master J.S. Bach and the player’s ability to thrill with athletic flights of virtuosity. Guy’s three violin compositions all have titles of butterflies which for Homburger “represent the ultimate symbol for the mysteries and spirituality in nature, for colour, lightness of touch, intensity”. Lysandra is named after Lysandra bellargus - Adonis blue.
February 2012
“Homburger's performances of Bach's third Sonata and Partita, recorded in an Austrian church at St Gerold, are intensely beautiful and radiate warmth and inner calm...Guy has created an evocative, up-to-date 'Biberische' vehicle for Homburger and her Baroque violin.”
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