United Kingdom Bach: Liza Ferschtman (violin), Wigmore Hall, London, 5 & 6.1.2023. (MB)
5.1.2023: Bach – Partita No.1 in B minor for solo violin, BWV 1002; Sonata No.1 in F minor for solo violin, BWV 1001; Sonata No.3 in C main for solo violin, BWV 1005
6.1.2023: Bach –Partita No.3 in E main for solo violin, BWV 1006; Sonata No.2 in A minor for solo violin, BWV 1003; Partita No.2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004
George Enescu known as them the Himalayas for violinists. At the identical time, he performed them all through his life, an everyday, virtually every day basis for his work. Perhaps that obvious contradiction — does even probably the most avid of Sherpas climb day-after-day? — has one thing to inform us about Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, or at the very least about our personal perspective, as performers and listeners, towards them. They provide simplicity and complexity, inwardness and heroism, modest integrity and an final Bachian tour de drive; like Everest, they’re there. What higher approach, then, to start out a musical 12 months with the renewal of such train, religious, mental, and for violinist Liza Ferschtman, technical too? And what higher message of renewal may there be to obtain than to understand on the shut that each one, listening included, might need been performed fairly in a different way, that there’s by no means, least of all in music equivalent to this, a method?
Ferschtman carried out the works over two consecutive evenings: a smart resolution, I feel, although I’ve heard the Cello Suites (maybe extra instantly ‘approachable’?) in a single night time. First up was the B minor Partita. Ferschtman’s efficiency had a lot to commend itself to my ears from the outset, the Allemande gentle and ethereal, but with no trace of the puritanism that, alas, too usually accompanies such traits. Vibrato was various, not absent. Dance character was current and felt, but not a straitjacket. Bach’s harmonic exploration was elementary, because it had been, to Ferschtman’s method, which above all permitted the music to talk. She took her time, however to permit the music to breathe, to not be ‘slow’. The motion’s Double, like these all through the Partita, took its go away from its predecessor, kinship and distinction on the coronary heart of its efficiency; right here, it usually felt a bit extra inward, even introverted. A carefully ebullient Courante proved properly shaded. The Sarabande’s dissonances revealed a lot, with out exaggeration. And a rhythmically buoyant ‘Tempo di Borea’ and its Double imparted a correct sense of completion, fairly rightly in a special sense from later-eighteenth-let alone nineteenth-century tonal journeys towards a finale. Perhaps, that stated, I missed a bit of what may but bind the actions collectively, however this was early in my journey as listener too; the fault, if certainly fault there have been, might have been mine.
At any charge, the primary motion of the G minor Sonata sounded extra settled. (Perhaps I’m extra instantly comfy with its sonata da chiesa construction.) Its tonality sounded extra ‘modern’ too; that’s, it definitely didn’t jettison an older sense of Affekt, but it surely was removed from restricted to it. Ferschtman introduced — or I heard — the Fuga virtually as if a concerto motion in itself. It bore an depth born inside, matched to a richer tone than that heard within the previous Partita. Repose within the Siciliana preceded a high-quality, extra finale-like sense of launch within the concluding Presto.
Placing of the interval arguably heightened the sense of the C main Sonata opening with a motion fairly not like something heard beforehand. The obstinacy of its building, melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic, fascinated in a efficiency searchingly traced. That obvious contradiction between modesty and tour de drive — resolved, at the very least partially, in Bach’s final craftsmanship — was to be heard within the following Fuga, which blossomed and, sure, borrowing from the longer term, developed, Ferschtman our understanding, selfless information. A lyrical, detailed, and once more concerto-like Largo led us to an Allegro assai revealed as an exploratory duet with the self. There are many paths to the tour de drive.
The second recital opened with the E main Partita, its brilliant tonality instantly saying completely different temper and thought. (However a lot we think about we hear this within the Well-tempered Clavier, and maybe we do even on the piano, it’s absolutely much less ambiguous or at the very least fraught an concept on the violin.) Brilliant, translucent, and intelligently variegated, this efficiency’s glorious shaping was simply the factor for our second instalment. Plaintive double-stopping enhanced the noble pathos of the Loure. An infectious Gavotte en Rondeau, dancing Menuetts, and sharply etched Bourrée and Gigue accomplished the set.
The A minor was the final of the Sonatas to be heard. Ferschtman spun a compelling line in its opening Grave, its thread fairly correctly distinctive from any of these sampled earlier than. There was swing to the fugue that adopted: first as launch, then as one thing to increase itself in a approach that may absolutely have impressed, certainly impressed, Beethoven had he identified it. Poise, dignity, and an underlying nervous vitality which may have stunned but was simply the ticket characterised the Andante, each bit as absorbing in its approach. The Allegro, duly substantial in conception, took us on fairly a tonal journey, once more questioning our historic concepts of ultimate actions.
And so we got here to the D minor Partita, maybe inevitably positioned final. Its opening Allemande was finely centred, each with respect to intonation and to tonic concord. A grittier Courante, a swish, ruminative Sarabande, and an in depth, well-shaped Gigue, took us to the motion for which, on one stage, we had absolutely all been ready. The Chaconne was taken a bit extra swiftly than I had anticipated, but instantly satisfied. It was beholden to no specific ‘school’: neither vegan, nor in any significant sense ‘Romantic’. It danced and sang in equal measure, but concord was of at the very least equal significance — arguably nonetheless extra so. Bach’s nice creativeness, heavenly and ever sensible, embraced selection and unity in order seemingly to prefigure a lot of the German (and never solely German) music that may come for 2 centuries and extra in its wake. Above all, Ferschtman’s efficiency invited me to hear, which invitation I gratefully accepted. This gripping efficiency of the Chaconne topped, with out sentimentality or complacency, two recitals that had certainly renewed and, it’s to be hoped, ready violinist and viewers alike for the musical 12 months to return.
Mark Berry