Although J. S. Bach was best known as a virtuoso on the organ and harpsichord, he was also a better-than-average violinist and violist. He learned to play the violin as a child—probably under the tutelage of his father, a town piper in Eisenach—and kept it up for the rest of his life. In later years, he owned a fine instrument by Jacob Stainer, a leading violin maker of the Baroque period, on which he played “clearly and penetratingly,” according to his son Carl Philipp Emanuel. Bach’s dual proficiency on keyboard and string instruments proved useful when he became director of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum in 1729 and began presenting regular concerts of secular music to a paying public. The venerable church musician was often to be seen at Zimmermann’s popular coffeehouse in Leipzig, leading the resident orchestra from the concertmaster’s stand.
Bach was in his early 30s and already enjoyed considerable renown when he accepted an appointment as Kapellmeister, or director of music, to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen in 1717. In the words of a later court composer in Cöthen, Johann Adam Hiller, the prince “was a great connoisseur and champion of music; he himself played the violin not badly and sang a good bass.” Thanks to Leopold’s interest and generosity, Bach had at his disposal a group of some 16 expert instrumentalists who inspired such beloved works as the six Brandenburg Concertos, the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and the six sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin, BWV 1001–1006. The autograph score of the violin solos is dated 1720, but scholars believe that some of the music was composed during Bach’s previous appointment as court organist in Weimar. Although a number of composers had written music for solo violin in the 17th century, none was on the scale that Bach attempted. Nor had anyone achieved such breathtaking contrapuntal and harmonic complexity by means of a single melodic instrument. As his biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel observed in 1802, Bach “so combined in a single part all the notes required to make the modulations complete that a second part is neither necessary nor desirable.” C. P. E. Bach told Forkel that his father “understood to perfection the possibilities of all stringed instruments ... One of the greatest violinists told me once that he had seen nothing more perfect for learning to be a good violinist, and could suggest nothing better to anyone eager to learn, than the said violin solos without bass.”
In his three solo violin sonatas, Bach adopted the four-movement church sonata (sonata da chiesa) structure that had been promulgated some years earlier by Italian violinist and composer Arcangelo Corelli. In outline, it consisted of a slow, majestic introduction followed by a fast movement in fugal style, a lyrical interlude, and a brilliant finale. The opening Grave of the A-Minor Sonata is dark and rhapsodic in character, its fine-spun tendrils of melody clinging to a sturdy harmonic frame. An open-sounding cadence on a unison E ushers in one of Bach’s longest (286 bars) and most elaborate fugues. A densely woven tapestry of short rhythmic and melodic motifs, the music shifts restlessly from one tonal center to another, alternating between brilliant intensity and quiet reflection, finally coming to rest on a resounding A-major chord. A sharp contrast is in store in the Andante, a luminous aria that gently ebbs and flows above a steady current of pulsing eighth notes. Each of the movement’s two parts is repeated, inviting the performer to embellish Bach’s rather austere melodic line. Then comes another surprise: a burst of pent-up energy in racing 16th notes, each of the opening phrases followed by an echo, and each half of the movement played twice. The tension and momentum build inexorably until the Allegro reaches its exhilarating climax.
Longtime organist of the Church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris (where he followed in the footsteps of Maurice Duruflé), Thierry Escaich leads an equally active and distinguished career as a composer. Last year saw the world premiere of his opera Shirine, about a fictional Armenian princess who rose to take the throne as queen of Persia, by the Opéra National de Lyon. Nun komm, composed in 2001 for violinist David Grimal, is a short, phantasmagorical rumination on the Lutheran chorale “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” (“Savior of the Nations, Come”). In addition to making several organ settings of the tune, Bach featured it in a pair of Advent-themed cantatas. Brilliantly virtuosic in character, Escaich’s violin solo calls for an array of extended instrumental techniques, as well as updated versions of some of the compositional techniques that Bach used in his mighty D-Minor Chaconne, to be heard at the end of tonight’s concert.
Gentler and more lyrical in tone than BWV 1003, the C-Major Sonata seems to begin where the A-minor Andante leaves off. The opening Adagio features a quietly insistent thematic motive—a repeated oscillating figure in dotted rhythm that wanders imperturbably from register to register, its stately progress interrupted by an occasional flourish. Once again, Bach starts the Fuga on the dominant (the fifth degree of the scale), taking a placid chorale melody for his theme. But it soon becomes apparent that this fugue has not one but two subjects; it is, in fact, a double fugue, and its intricate design and monumental proportions make it a tour de force for both composer and performer. After these exertions the violinist deserves a rest, and Bach provides one in the Largo, a lyrical and richly expressive meditation in F major. The concluding Allegro assai is brisk and businesslike, characterized by propulsive motor rhythms, long sequences (the same music played at different pitches), and showy bariolages (a technique in which the player moves rapidly between static and changing notes).
A fixture of New York’s downtown music scene since the 1970s, John Zorn wears multiple hats as saxophonist, record producer, and composer whose category-defying catalog ranges from classical to bebop, and from klezmer to cutting-edge rock. Famously prolific, he is known for his often zanily postmodernist “file card” pieces appropriating music by other composers, as well as improvisatory “game pieces” for a cornucopia of ensembles. The latter exemplify Zorn’s commitment to collaborative music making, which is fundamental to his artistic philosophy. “I don’t ascribe to the idea of the ivory tower composer who sits alone in a room composing his masterpieces and then comes down from Mount Sinai with the tablets,” he once told an interviewer. “It doesn’t work like that. The job of a composer is putting something down on a piece of paper that will inspire the person who’s playing.” Like Escaich’s Nun komm, Passagen—the German term for musical “runs,” or rapid sequences of notes—showcases both the player’s chops and the violin’s sonic resources. By turns calm and frenetic, abrasive and lyrical, Zorn’s piece is dedicated to Elliott Carter, whose works are notable for their rhythmic complexity and densely contrapuntal textures. Passagen is similarly packed with musical ideas and allusions to a wide swath of violin repertoire, from J. S. Bach to Luciano Berio.
In his three solo violin partitas, Bach adopted the flexible format of the Baroque chamber sonata, or sonata da camera. Both that term and the word partita (which translates as “little part” or “division”) referred to a suite of stylized instrumental dances, usually, but not always, including a stately allemande, a vivacious courante, a broadly lyrical sarabande, and a bouncy gigue. (Like many musicians of the time, Bach used Italian, French, and German terminology interchangeably, hence the variant titles allemanda, corrente, sarabanda, and giga.) The Partita in D Minor starts out as a conventional four-dance suite, with a plangent, dark-hued Allemande, a somewhat lighter-spirited Courante, a grave and intense Sarabande, and an agile, high-stepping Gigue. All begin with the same sequence of chords, whose slow-moving base line (D–C-sharp–D–B-flat–A) serves as a kind of a unifying “head-motif.” This recurring bass pattern is easiest to hear in the concluding Chaconne, a highly elaborate version of a popular dance imported from Latin America by way of Spain and originally performed by voice and guitar. Often performed on its own, the Chaconne is one of Bach’s noblest and most celebrated creations. Its monumental architecture rests on a simple but sturdy foundation: The ever-changing ostinato bass provides the harmonic underpinning for a series of 32 stunningly imaginative variations, ranging in length from four to 12 bars.
—Harry Haskell