Bach, J S: Sonata for solo violin No. 1 in G minor, BWV1001

The star of the young Hungarian violinist Kristóf Baráti is quickly rising. Having won several important international competitions (the most recent first prize at the prestigious Paganini Competition in Moscow) he plays with important orchestras and conductors, like Charles Dutoit, Kurt Masur, Iván Fischer, Yuri Temirkanov and Marek Janowski.

His recent recording of Beethoven’s complete violin sonatas with Klára Würtz received rave reviews: “5 stars…a great duo, comparable with Perlman/Ashkenazy, Grumiaux/Haskil, Ferras/Barbizet’ (Diapason), “A talent that comes along once in a decade, perhaps once in a generation, I don’t say it lightly, but once you’ve heard Baráti and Würtz you’ll never listen to anyone else again” (Fanfare).

This recording of the great solo Bach was issued on Berlin Classics in 2009, and shows the sovereign command over the matter, and a deep understanding of the spirit of these masterworks.

Bach may well be one of the most widely acknowledged master composers of all time, but that only serves to make each performer’s interpretation of his work all the more challenging and distinctive: each musician must both do justice to the composer’s intention, making a decision as to the best way of conveying that within the music which is not fixed, and at the same time leave their own mark on the performance. This is especially true for these Sonatas and Partitas given the variety of styles in which such Baroque masterworks have been performed, ranging from the freely romantic to the strictly precise, and the technical challenge posed by these complex pieces for a single instrument. The works in this collection are something of an enigma, not only because of the uncertainty surrounding the circumstances and date of their composition, but, more crucially, because of the way in which they stretch the capacity for polyphony of a single violin beyond its physical limit. It is as though Bach had written for a full ensemble of instruments – but on a single staff. Modern musicians have even speculated as to the possible existence of a special bow with which an exact performance of the music might have been achieved in Bach’s day. The music is no less rich for all of this, however: on the contrary, the harmonic complexity of these pieces is at once captivating and beautiful; the implied but absent notes are thrillingly suggestive; and the multiplicity of voices leaves the listener marvelling at Bach’s compositional vision and the performer’s ability.

This accomplished musical feat is performed by Kristóf Baráti, a Hungarian violinist who has worked with an astonishing number of world‐famous orchestras and conductors. Baráti plays a 1703 Stradivarius violin, and one can sense this echo of the era of the pieces as much as one can his intense emotional involvement with the music.

The violinist Gunar Letzbor is an established specialist in performing Austrian baroque music. In particular, he has intensively grappled with works by Biber, Muffat and Schmelzer, to name but three examples. In so doing, he has sought a specifically Austrian baroque string sound.

He now turns his attention to the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin BWV1001-1006 by Bach – the Mount Olympus of every violinist, regardless of whether he/she has specialised in historical performance practice. After having immersed himself in these works and performed them in concerts, Letzbor is now introducing them on CD. In this first volume he has pursued an unusual approach. Through the positioning of the microphones in direct proximity to the violin, the listener becomes a participant to a certain extent, and has the opportunity to perceive even the finest nuances in a 'private' setting.

Over the past 40 years Philippe Herreweghe has been working with some extraordinary soloists with whom he has had very fertile and stimulating dialogues, both musically and personally.

Philippe Herreweghe: “It seems important to give these musicians the opportunity to express themselves on the label PHI in works they are particularly fond of.”

This is the case of the present recording. Christine Busch, leader of the orchestra of Collegium Vocale Gent, recorded the Sonatas & Partitas for solo violin by J. S. Bach – a work she admires, and she has been playing since her childhood.

Philippe Herreweghe: “Christine Busch inspires by her technical perfection, her strength, her humility, her sense for poetry, as well as by her qualities needed to serve the greatest of all composer.”

Jascha Heifetz has been described as the ‘greatest twentieth-century exponent of his instrument’ (Gramophone). Critics admired his technical agility and the myriad nuances of his playing, qualities that made him one of the most iconic violinists of his era. This set includes a selection of concertos and sonatas that showcase Heifetz’s versatility and his extraordinary ability to capture the particular character of each piece in his repertoire.

"To immerse oneself in a work like this is to begin a long journey from which one can only return profoundly transformed, and with the constant wish to set out once more. To approach these pieces where genius reigns alone compels humility at the same time as joy at being their messenger." Hélène Schmitt

Isabelle Faust hit the Classical charts earlier this year with her mesmerising recording of Beethoven and Berg with Claudio Abbado. She followed up with some welcome live appearances here in the UK, which included the Brahms' concerto at the Barbican with frequent collaborators Jiri Belohlavek and the BBCSO.

Isabelle's recordings have won prizes since her harmonia mundi debut in 1997 which earned her a Gramophone Young Artist Award. In 2010 her Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Alexander Melnikov also won. The afore-mentioned Beethoven-Berg has been awarded Gramophone Recording of the Month, Daily Telegraph Classical CD of the Week, Times CD of the Week, Classic FM Disc of the Week, Sunday Times CD of the Week, BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month and CD Review Disc of the Week.

Now she returns to J.S. Bach for a second volume of what Andrew McGregor described in such glowing terms: "there’s some of the best-judged ornamentation I’ve heard in repeated passages. The recording is utterly self-effacing, in just the right way, and my only complaint is that the job’s half done...I’m impatient for the rest! Harmonia Mundi is the label, it’s released this coming Monday, and the notes are excellent as well." CD Review, BBC Radio 3, 27 March 2010

Isabelle is shortlisted for the Gramophone Best Artist Award 2012. Her next concert in the UK is at the Wigmore Hall, October 29 with Alexander Melnikov and Jean-Guihen Queyras.

The Beijing-born guitarist Xuefei Yang has recorded her first album of baroque music, an all-Bach programme anchored by three concertos newly arranged for guitar and string quartet. Bach Concertos is an exciting, innovative album in which she has transcribed for the guitar some of Bach’s familiar violin concertos and other works, hoping to establish these new arrangements as noteworthy repertoire for the guitar and to expand the concerto repertoire for that instrument. Xuefei complements the concertante repertoire with solo guitar arrangements of the Violin Sonata No. 1 BWV 1001, the Prelude in C Major from the Well-Tempered Clavier BWV 846 and the Air on a G string from the Orchestral Suite in D major BWV 1068.

Xuefei, whose international career finds her on the prestigious stages of the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Royal Albert Hall, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Philharmonie (Berlin), Konzerthaus (Vienna) and Lincoln Center (New York), as well as to other major concert halls of Europe, North America and Asia, hopes that the new concerto arrangements will become established additions to the repertoire for her instrument. “In the baroque concerto repertoire,” she says, we only really have Vivaldi Concertos, which are very light in nature. These Bach concertos would be a substantial and significant addition to the guitar repertoire and may create new opportunities to bring the instrument to a wider musical audience.”

Explaining the background to her latest recording, Xuefei said, “In Bach’s time, the modern guitar had not yet been invented but a close relative, the lute, was a popular instrument. Bach wrote quite a few works for solo lute and they have become core repertoire for guitarists. When I was playing the wonderful solo violin works by Bach, I wondered whether his concertos would work on the guitar too. So I found the scores and, to my delight, I found that they did!” The three concertos at the heart of the recording are those for Violin in A minor BWV 1041 and E Major BWV 1042 and for Harpsichord in D minor BWV 1052. Xuefei performs them with the Elias String Quartet.

After The Four Seasons, the Bach violin concertos, and the sonatas of Matteis, Amandine Beyer presents her vision of the Sonatas and Partitas, one of the pillars of the repertoire, coupled with the solo sonata of Pisendel, the best-known German violinist of his generation, who met Bach at Weimar.