CSOradio
CSOradio
Through the championing of famed artists like Pablo Casals, Mstislav Rostropovich and Yo-Yo Ma, J.S. Bach’s six profoundly moving suites for unaccompanied cello have taken their place among the most revered works in all classical music. ’
Occupying a similar place in the violin repertoire are Bach’s six solo sonatas and partitas (BWV 1001-1006), which he likely began composing around 1717. A surviving autograph manuscript exists from 1720.
Many celebrated violinists from the past including Joseph Szigeti and Yehudi Menuhin have recorded these works, and more recently, such soloists as Hilary Hahn and James Ehnes, whose set was released on the Onyx label in 2021.
In February 2022, Kavakos added his take, with an album of the complete works on the Sony Classical label that his website describes as his “most significant recording yet,” a major statement, considering the many masterworks on his many previous releases.
“This is the most important opus that we have in the violin repertoire,” he said. “There is nothing that surpasses the Bach solo sonatas and partitas. Not that other repertoire is not great or not needed or is not loved or anything like this.”
Playing these works provide a variety of challenges, he said, the biggest one being what not to do. Performers usually try to give their all during performances, and in the case of these works, that might not be best approach, because the music is so “incredibly structured and complete.”
Kavakos contrasted Bach’s music with that of another milestone composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born in 1770, 20 years after the death of the Baroque master.
“With Bach, you feel that you are elevated to a level that is probably not compatible with everyday life, in the sense that you are going spiritually on another level,” he said. “That is what is fantastic about it. Beethoven is fantastic [in the sense] that you feel earthy, as earthy as possible, and at the same time, you are able to look at what’s up there. That’s how I see it.”
