Search - Johann Sebastian Bach :: Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin

Another Great Issue from Naxos

NMdesapio | 09/11/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"How wonderful to have a fine period violin recording of the Bach unaccompanied sonatas and partitas at budget price! Japp Schroeder does a fine, reliable and even job with these hallowed pieces, beautiful in tone (where period playing is sometimes harsh), and historically accurate without opting for eccentricities. A welcome reissue from Naxos.



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A Fine Baroque Performance

Ross Kennett | Narooma, NSW Australia | 04/13/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Just about every violinist of note has recorded these difficult but great sonatas and partitas for solo violin. Surprisingly there have been few by specialist baroque violinists for music that, I think, demands one. The great improvement, to my ears, is the tone of the violoin, for example the highly praised late 1960s version by Grumiaux sounds harsh and strident. ( I think Grumiaux a great player of music of the classic period, particularly the chamber music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert etc ) This version By Jaap Schroder, recorded back in 1984-5 and recently re-released by Naxos, is a very good one, relaxed, affectionate, and always in control, and the tone and recording quality is also very good. You will hear the ocassional slight change in rhythm when you don't expect one, but it will sound just right the second playing. My favourite has always been partita no 3, perhaps because I first heard it played by Segovia on guitar 45 years ago. The cover notes, written by Schroder, a short essay on playing baroque violin, are also very good.

Warmly recommended, especially at the bargain price.

( ps What a strange "review" from Lee, Schroder had been concertmaster and soloist with Concerto Amsterdam for about 10 years before he made this recording )"

A Performance Passed By

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 10/06/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I had to dig back into vinyl to find this performance from about 1984 of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. I did so in response to an exchange I've had with another customer here on amazon, comparing various interpretations of these challenging masterworks. There was a time, around 1984, when perhaps I thought this recording was "pretty darn good", based on the revelation of tonal beauty from a violin with gut strings, played at "chamber pitch". There are still moments of solemn tonal beauty to be heard, but there isn't much else to recommend this effort by the great Baroque violin pioneer, Jaap Schroder. What really startles me is how much he sounds like Jascha Heifetz, and I don't intend that as a compliment. He scoops and scrapes and loses the movement of the musical line, and he seems to depend heavily on crescendo/decrescendo to distract one's mind from impure pitches here and there. Alas, I couldn't listen through the whole set. Schroder was a profound musician down to his toes, but his elbow couldn't bend fast enough for the prestos and doubles of these hyper-virtuosic pieces, at least at this stage of his career.



There are dozens of recordings of these sonatas/partitas, and most of them capture very fine violinists in the act of rising to the level of their incompetence. The performance by another pioneer Baroque fiddler, Lucy van Dael, is such a thoughtful, poignant interpretation that a shortage of virtuosity isn't an issue. The more recent performance on an authentic gut-strung violin by Rachel Podger is far more technically finished, and stands as perhaps the best "historically informed' recording available. For a dazzling show of technical prowess on a modern violin, I recommend the version recorded by Christian Tetzlaff. To my ears, Tetzlaff's cool, Apollonian rather than Dionysian, highly athletic performance elucidates the counterpoint and dance-like structures of the music better than most of the versions on historically authentic fiddles."