Customer Reviews

Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin

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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.

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.

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 )

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750): Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001 thru 1006 (2 CDs). Performed by Jaap Schröder, baroque violin. Recorded in 1984 and 1985 at the Village Church of Oltingen, near Basel, Switzerland. First published in 1990 by the Smithsonian Institute, re-released in 2005 by Naxos at budget price (8.557563-4). Total playing time: 143 minutes.

I should like to thank Naxos for re-releasing these beautiful CDs and giving me an opportunity to hear Jaap Schröder's interpretation of Bach's wonderful works for violin solo - and to read his remarkable essay, printed in the booklet in English and German. The product needs to be seen as a unit, and the essay needs to be read before listening to the music. In it, Schröder not only informs about the history of Bach's music for violin solo, he also talks about his own interpretation and speculates about future interpretations. Two aspects seem to me to be very important here. One is, that Schröder seems to have been one of the first to have recorded this music on a "period instrument" (unfortunately, the notes say nothing about the instrument used; I would dearly have loved to know when, where and by whom both the violin and the bow used were made.) The latter part of his essay is concerned to make plain why he chose to use a baroque instrument and what consequences this had for his interpretation: "While our modern instruments (as well as valuable antiques set up under modern high tension) have acquired an impressive physical power, an increasing number of players have found a renewed delight in the old, but never forgotten virtues of clarity and soberness of expression, of excitement through incisive rhythmic stimulation, of flexibility and delicacy of articulation. The idea that 'less is more' has a relaxing influence on the physical tension of the body. The logical consequence of this approach has been a return to the original instruments and their playing technique. [...] The use of a baroque violin, with its resonant and clear sound, is able to reveal the specific attraction of a less pressured approach." All this is surely borne out by the recording itself, which, although one may disagree with details, really does combine absolute clarity with the mellow sound one has come to associate with period baroque instruments. None of that high-pressure tension here that had been the trademark of many violinists during the first half of the 20th century.

The other important point in Schröder's essay is his acceptance of changing tastes in interpretation. He writes: "What seems appropriate and right in one generation becomes old-fashioned and will be rejected in the next one, and no performance style is able to escape the critical judgement of a later period. It is not the continually more detailed knowledge about the past that is the severest judge; it is the ever-changing concept of taste, as applied in perfect good faith to the interpretation of Bach's music. 'De gustibus non est disputandum' leads also to the conclusion that the taste of today will inevitably be deemed old-fashioned by the musicians of the early twenty-first century."

Over 20 years have passed since Schröder, a former concertmaster of the Academy of Ancient Music, made this recording, and since then other proponents of the baroque violin have proffered their interpretations (I have come across those by Monica Huggett on Virgin, Lucy van Dael on Naxos, Rachel Podger on Channel Classics and most recently John Holloway on ECM Records; Holloway's interpretation (Bach: The Sonatas & Partitas for Violin Solo /Holloway) has been greatly praised by the music press here in Germany.) But I must say that, to me as a non-player, Schröder's interpretation seemed fairly timeless. His tempi are convincing, his playing beautiful. And despite the obvious differences between a baroque and a modern violin, I discovered parallels with the recordings by the 19-year-old Yehudi Menuhin, whose timing was not all that different from Schröder's.

At least one other reviewer has criticized the sound of this recording, but I think this is to exaggerate the problem. Fact is that recording baroque instruments has always posed something of a problem for sound engineers because of the mechanical noise involved. Pere Casulleras has opted to record Schröder's violin right up close, which allows one to hear every nuance of his playing but also a number of extraneous noises which may, in fact, have emanated from Schröder himself rather than his violin (I found it quite difficult to identify the various brief bumps). Also, I found listening to this direct recording more satisfying on ear-speakers or headphones than in front of loudspeakers, although that may just be a personal preference.

All in all, I would say that although this interpretation was never conceived as being the "non plus ultra" of Bach playing, it fulfills its purpose very well. Experts will, of course, want at least one other, newer interpretation (see the Holloway link above), but those who just want to hear Bach played pleasingly on a period instrument have here with Schröder the opportunity to do so at a price which really takes some beating.

I am utterly puzzled. Jaap Schroeder is a prestigious name in the baroque performance movement. So why do some tracks of this recording sound like a high school student warming up? Schroeder's approach to Bach's masterpieces is tentative and jerky, with a shaky, strained tone and a lack of inflection. Multiple stops are sometimes out of tune and/or of an excruciating tone quality; intonation is spotty throughout, with a few downright train wrecks. To my ears, Schroeder doesn't sound like an orthodox baroque violinist here: his tone, while attractively mellow, doesn't "ring out" as a baroque violin should; there is little sense of beat hierarchy; and here and there one hears residual "modern" technique creeping in, such as the mechanical "telephone trill" and "automatic vibrato". (I make these criticisms as a baroque violinist who studies with one of Schroeder's former pupils.) Most seriously of all, Schroeder doesn't seem to be up to the technical complexities of the music; his rendering of the quasi-polyphonic writing is strained and effortful. Downright disturbing is his involuntary grunting which is audible at various points. Add to this an overly close, spongy acoustic (the sound actually goes in and out during the G minor Sonata), and you have a recording that has little to recommend it. Schroeder is a fine writer and pedagogue, as his recent book on playing Bach's six solos demonstrates, but he simply wasn't up to performing these pieces at this point in his career. The Bach Sonatas and Partitas have been done much better by baroque violinists since (including Kuijken, Podger, and Holloway). If you are confused by the conflicting reviews on this page, just listen to the sound samples and judge for yourself. For my part, I find it hard to believe this recording ever got released, let alone re-issued.

Not much more than a modern violinist playing on a baroque instrument.