Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, James Oliver Buswell IV :: Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin

Bach to basics

viktor_57 | Fairview, Your Favorite State, USA | 08/01/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"By some crazy cosmic coincidence that only a quantum physicist could appreciate, I happened to hear, within the same week, two renditions of Bach's Partita No.2 in D minor, BWV 1004, by two different violinists, neither of whom I had heard before. The first violinist I heard, Mela Tenenbaum, both impressed and confounded me, but repeated listening to the same work on CD began to reveal an uncompromising and intelligent artist. A few days after hearing Tenenbaum for the first time, I heard the same partita played by a different violinist, also one whose playing I had not heard before. My immediate impression was of labored insistence. Not only did the playing seem labored--every bow stroke emphasized no matter how short the note--but the approach felt intentionally square. Not square in any metronomic sense, since the rhythm never fell exactly on the beat, but square in the orthodox sense, of combining all the common interpretative habits of previous violinists and distilling the result into a forceful, metaphysics-free Bach of notes and familiar gestures. Given this faint praise, why recommend Buswell at all?



While the old trope that, no matter how often we return to them, we always find something new in works of genius suggests that fresh and original interpretations would be valued most highly, the opposite, conservative approach to interpretation also informs our ears as a kind of history lesson and point for departure. This is especially instructive for the student of these works, for every violinist must come to Bach balancing precedent, technique, and personal taste to form an intelligible and aesthetically satisfying whole, and Buswell's traditional Bach may be more helpful to students for this purpose than Tenenbaum's, whose Bach is so personal that it almost precludes borrowing or imitation. So while Buswell and Tenenbaum give us seemingly opposed interpretations of Bach's solo violin works, one may find inspiration from each for different reasons."