I have been wondering why exactly it is that I love the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin so much. They are, of course, part of every violinist's repertoire. They are some of the most creative and complex works for a solo instrument. And it's not to say that others haven't written some very creative and complex solo violin works, as well. What about the Bartok Solo Sonata? That's on my bucket list to perform, too. After I learn it, of course... The Bach cycle is the kind of music that every time you come back to it, you discover something new. The Sonatas and Partitas are fully academic, fully artistic, and fully emotive. They require a smorgasbord of technique without being show-off pieces. They are the kind of work that every performer can have radically different interpretations of, and there are still more ways to play them that can be dreamed up.
People have asked me over the years for my favorite recordings, and I can't really answer that. I grew up with Arthur Grumiaux on LP, and in the last decade I bought my first ever recording of the cycle, which is the Christian Tetzlaff. It was my prize in a practice challenge I did with my students. For the most part I have been rather skittish with recordings. I have heard the Bach pieces live so much, I feel that they are living, breathing pieces, so it is impossible to set down in stone (or 0's and 1's these days) the (or even "a") perfect interpretation. They are always, breathing, changing, evolving.
Not to say I haven't heard them plenty. From middle school through graduate school, I was almost never without a solo Bach work in my daily practice repertoire, and that was true of almost all of my student colleagues in Cleveland. Twice I week I heard a smorgasbord of movements performed in studio class. Plus all the encounters in the daily recitals during recital season, the playing for each other in practice rooms, and the snatches heard in the practice hallways, and not limited to the violin. Certain movements are enjoyed by violists, bassists, and marimba players.
I have studied all six of the works many times over the years, and performed all of them on multiple occasions. In the spring of 2011 I performed them in a methodical way at our church in Huntsville - the first two one month, the next two two months later, and the next two yet two month later. It was the first step in a build-up which has since halted its course due to moves, childbirth, and life craziness in general. The build-up was meant to take me to a single day recital with all six. That is still on my bucket list. I am attracted to extreme events. This is an extreme event I am dying to take on. I may put a date on the calendar in the near future and work toward it. Events of the next few weeks may dictate some of the details of that schedule.
This weekend I heard the fourth performance of the complete cycle all in a day.
...First there was Christian Tetzlaff, many years ago in the beautifully acoustic Harris Concert Hall in Aspen, Colorado. Then there was Sharon Roffman in the large Kulas Hall at Cleveland Institute of Music. Then there was Johnny Gandelsman at Town Hall (the former First Church of Christ, Scientist) in downtown Seattle. This time was Rachel Barton Pine in the Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya, a few blocks down the hill from Town Hall.
Tetzlaff's music was a marathon. A mathematician, he played Bach with precision and a stunning variety of tempos, including some of the fastest presti I have ever heard. It was breathtaking and exhausting. Sharon Roffman was a masters student when I was an undergrad, and in true Weilerstein-student fashion, she wanted to do something different, something artistically challenging and deep. So one of her two masters recitals was the complete Bach program. She was creative and bold. Now she is a small-time soloist, freelance chamber musician, and part-time music educator, and I wonder if she has done this program again. I loved her phrasing, her nuance, her articulation. Last year I heard Johnny Gandelsman on the Town Hall Music series, which our old school friend Josh Roman runs. Josh pulls in eclectic and often unknown talent. Johnny's Bach was both boldly modern and daringly Baroque. He is not a concerto-style player. He took to the Bach as a chamber musician. Rachel's Bach was the first complete cycle I heard on a period instrument with period bows. She used one bow for everything but the 3rd Partita, for which she used a different bow. I'm guessing that she used a French bow for that one. She did not take any repeats, which made the marathon feel more manageable. She was at her most invincible in the C Major Fugue (the longest Bach ever wrote for any instrument.) She was at her most creative in the Third Partita. The Preludio was athletic and driving. The dance movements were delicately ornamented in ways I had never heard before. It was another breath of fresh air. And this was the first complete cycle I heard with an encore! She played a little suite of her own compilation of Scottish fiddle tunes from the same era as the Bach - an air, a march, a strathspey, and a reel. Her grasp of Scottish ornamentation is stunning, and people were straining in their seats to figure out how she was making those perfect Highlands sounds.
Some of my readers may not be familiar with Rachel Barton Pine, which is a shame. She is basically the Yo-Yo Ma of the violin, by which I mean she is generous in every way possible, and she plays every sort of style you can imagine at the highest level possible: concertos with major orchestras, Bluegrass with the greats from Nashville, historically informed performance on Baroque instruments, she champions women and Black composers, she plays covers of hard rock, incredible master class teacher, Scottish fiddling, she composes...
Speaking of master classes. Anne Rendle texted me in the wee hours of Friday morning to let me know that Rachel Barton Pine was giving another master class nearby on Friday (I couldn't attend the one on Thursday in Bellevue), and it was free and open to the public, and did I want to go with her. Well, of course, I did. And my Anne wanted to go, which I agreed to at the last minute with some trepidation. I wasn't sure how I was going to keep her quiet for two hours while I tried to absorb everything. But actually it was the PERFECT masterclass to take her to. There is an amazing violinist by the name of Quintin Morris who grew up here in Renton, right about my age, and he is now assistant professor of violin at Seattle University. That's his day job. A year ago, he started an incredible non-profit in Renton which reaches low-income violin students and students of color ages 12-18 with very serious violin lessons. The students give quarterly recitals, and they have masterclasses with big stars, and then get to attend their concerts. These kids got almost three hours with Rachel. She was generous and precise in working with them on their music at all levels - French Folk Song, Twinkle, Song of the Wind, the D Major Scale, a double stop etude, Lalo Symphonie espagnole, concerti by Vivaldi and Telemann. After she worked with all the students, she took questions from them about how she became a professional and how she prepares for performances. Then she pulled out a little tiny violin, and said, "Sophia, it's time to wash your hands." One of the little girls Anne was playing quietly with off to the side came running up. It was Rachel's six-year-old daughter, and the two of them gave us a special presentation they had prepared for the Chicago public school's Black History Month celebrations. They performed eleven pieces by composers of African descent from around the world and across the centuries. Afterward, when Sofia went back to playing with Anne and the other kids, Rachel showed us her "modern" violin and her Baroque violin and her different bows to explain their different set ups and sounds so the students would know what they were seeing on the Sunday concert.
I wanted to share a very few of the words Rachel wrote in her extensive program notes for Sunday's concert:
"You must practice Bach. It is the music of Gott!" Thus I was regularly instructed by the elderly German ladies at St. Pauls Church in Chicago, the church in which I was raised, during my earliest years as a violinist.
I was fortunate to grow up at St. Pauls, a church with deep dedication to music. The church has been a spiritual home to opera singers and members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. My relationship with Bach's music began and matured within the St. Pauls sanctuary. A work of Bach was the first piece I played, at the age of four, for a worship service.[...]
The beautiful acoustic of St. Pauls sanctuary, reverberant yet clear, has continued to inform my interpretation of Bach's music. It is my "emotional home" for his music, and no matter where I play Bach, the acoustical qualities of the sanctuary are always in my ear.
Bach created all of his compositions, whether explicitly sacred or not, in service to the Creator from whom his gift came. each is a celebration of his musical voice. Bach's relationship to his music is a constant reminder of my role and responsibilities as an artist. Every performance serves to honor the composer and the music as I strive to bring the notes on the page to life for the audience. The Sonatas and Partitas are among the greatest human achievements and I have always viewed them with the deepest reverence. however, remembering Bach's essential humility prevents these masterpieces from becoming overwhelming in their significance. Instead, each time I play them, I feel as though I'm conversing with the very best of friends.
