Bach: The Six Sonatas & Partitas for Violin Solo [Hybrid SACD] [HYBRID SACD - DSD]

Lara St. John (Artist), Bach (Composer)

Product Details

• Composer: Bach
• Audio CD (October 9, 2007)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Hybrid SACD - DSD
• Label: Ancalagon
• ASIN: B000VZAVSU
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #110,774 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"A high-powered soloist" -- New York Times

"Something of a phenomenon" -- Strad

"It is difficult to argue with such a technically dazzling and unfailingly musical interpretation." -- Gramophone

"A close-to-symphonic tone, a personal way with a phrase: Such artistry defeats all questions of historical correctness. If an interpretation that plumbs the depths and scales the heights of the famous Chaconne is not authentic, what is?" -- Montreal Gazette

"In her first three recordings she has show a rare mastery of violin technique, which makes her more than just a pretty face... This disc, which contains Bach's three violin concertos, and the first sonata for solo violin, shows that she plays these majestic pieces effortlessly." -- Music Web

Born in London, Ontario, Lara St. John was a child prodigy on the violin at the age of two, and went on her first European tour at the age of ten! At age thirteen she skipped from the eighth grade to a B.A. program at the Curtis Institute of Music. She plays a priceless 1779 Guadagnini violin. Her compelling personality and insightful performances have stimulated interest in classical music in a wide audience that seldom listened to it before. She scandalized some of the old school for appearing scantily clad on a couple of album covers, but she is completely authentic: a great violinist, whatever she is or is not wearing. As one critic wrote, she "has nothing to hide"--her musicality is first class. Lara St. John's brilliant musicianship, striking looks, and vivid personality have made her an authentic classical superstar. Recorded at Skywalker Sound in Super Audio and available in Hybrid.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely, Lovely JS BACH, March 28, 2008

By	Kendra - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Lara St. John is a superb violinist and a great intrepreter of Bach. I've been listening to Hillary Hahn play the same pieces and she is wonderful, too. But Lara has more "oomph" and sounds less technically motivated than Hahn. I mean no disparagement to Hahn here. St. John has the capacity to infuse high emotion into some very technically challenging solo violin pieces by the master. Much like Yo Yo Ma opened up a new audience to Bach's Cello Concerto's, St. John is doing the same for the solo Violin masterpieces of Bach.

Master musicians first learn the technique perfecting it to a high degree of precision, especially when playing Bach then they add the emotion to it. This is exceedingly difficult and only the greatest players pull it off convincingly. To say that St. John's Bach Violin work is "sweet" or "rapturous" would be close to the truth but something of an understatement. Listening to this music is like enjoying a fine wine, just a little bit can take you to lovely, stunning places that only the great master JS Bach could create. Bach was a gift to the world just as great players are such as St. John.

The CD artwork shows an oceanside view with St. John standing on the shore, confidently holding her violin. It's as if she's preparing the listener for the great voyage with Bach to wherever the listener's mind is led by the music. Flawless and stunning, Ms. St. John is a superb Bach violinist.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Realism please, October 10, 2008

By	Nycademon (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews

I kind of hate to rain on the parade of 5 star reviews, but in my opinion, this is just a good -- NOT notable -- version of Bach's sonatas and partitas.

I'm very familiar with releases of the complete sonatas and partitas by Itzhak Perlman, Nathan Milstein, and Henryk Szeryng. In my opinion, Szeryng's version (Label: Deutsche Grammophon ASIN: B000001GXY) is best, followed closely by Milstein (Label: Deutsche Grammophon ASIN: B000001H00). Perlman's is quite good, although I think his playing is a bit too "clean" and "Classical" for these Baroque works.

Additionally, on "Hilary Hahn Plays Bach" are the second and third partitas and the third sonata, and on "J.S. Bach: Violin Concertos; 3 Partitas" are Viktoria Mullova's version of the partitas. Hahn's version of Partita 2 is OK, though her tempo on the Ciaccona is way too slow. I like Mullova's partitas at least as much as Perlman's, because they're played beautifully, and her "take" on them is quite different from the others.

I would place St. John's version slightly below Hilary Hahn's, at the bottom of this list. St. John is unquestionably a gifted violinist, but her playing is flawed in places, she doesn't establish any sort of "mood", and this release doesn't compare well with Szeryng's and Milstein's versions of these works, which are simply phenomenal.

So please take all these 5 star reviews with a grain of salt. These performances are good, but there are many that are better.

UPDATE: Apparently, some folks haven't found this review helpful. In an effort to be more helpful, I'd like to provide the following: you can listen to this entire two CD set at Magnatune (www.magnatune.com) for free. Go there, listen to this thing, and then ask yourself if you really want to drop almost $30 on it. You might also want to listen to samples from the much better and less expensive releases I listed in my review. I did buy this set, and I consider it money badly spent. So listen, then decide.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Kitsch, June 17, 2009

By	Bart Weisser "bart_weisser" (Canada) - See all my reviews

How pretentious can this be! "Baroque" does not mean weird dynamics and discontinuous phrasing. On top of this, she seemed to be worried that we are not getting the point, and had the recording engineer attenuate the dynamic range to make it sound even more "Baroque". I thought she was suffering from incontinence when she was making this recording.

The recording was very uneven. The phrasing sounded like she forgot to breathe. And the engineering was just the final straw (Note: reverberation in a church never makes the sound airy. Listen to Itzhak Perlman's EMI recording and you will immediately notice the difference).

Though they have been played over and over again, the Sonatas and Partitas still present a monumental challenge even to the veterans (Nathan Milstein had to redo all his fingerings for them in his late career). In St. John's playing, I think she grossly underestimated the discipline and artistry that are required to perform and interpret these timeless pieces to a mere satisfactory level.

I cannot recommend such trivialized kitsch to anyone, despite the fact that we are both Canadians.