Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin BWV1001-1006 (1720)
Christine Busch (baroque violin)
rec. December 2011-January 2012, Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Reitstadel
PHI LPH008 [72:40 + 73:08]
Christine Busch shares the surname of an eminent
German predecessor, himself a Bach violinist of the highest distinction.
Christine Busch, however, comes from a very different lineage. Born
in Stuttgart, she regularly leads the Collegium Vocale Ghent under their
director Philippe Herreweghe, and earlier in her career she worked with
Harnoncourt’s Concentus Musicus Wien. Though she’s made
a number of recordings, she has now approached the Parnassus of the
violin literature in this two-disc recording of the solo sonatas and
partitas.
She plays on an eighteenth-century violin, possibly from the Tyrol,
and her bow is a modern copy patterned after an original dating from
around 1730. She has also taken the decision to use a facsimile of the
autograph manuscript. Her probing musicianship and reluctance to take
anything - editorially speaking - at face value is allied to a considered
approach to all six works, generating performances of illuminating intelligence.
This is of especial value in the contrapuntal movements, which she delineates
with considerable clarity but also left hand deftness too. The resultant
performances offer thus both clarity and nuance, and are delivered at
speeds that may surprise those who were expecting, because of her baroque
specialism, that she would race through the music. She is not simply
a baroque specialist, after all, as her discography and her concert
recitals demonstrate clearly.
Thus the Adagio of the G minor Sonata is both measured in tempo
and not subject to scrunchy articulation. Accompanying figures are brought
out; leading and accompanying strands duly recognised. Indeed, those
playing a modern set-up will invariably take far faster tempi than Busch
here, and at several other places in the set. The Allemande of
the First Partita is thoughtfully set out, and her chordal playing in
the Sarabande is judiciously weighted, lacking abrasive edge. She makes
no attempt to force the rhythm or generate spurious excitement in the
Tempo di Borea, so often over the years a test case study in
Romanticist acceleration. Only occasionally, such as in the Fuga
of the Second Sonata, does her deliberation in exploring the counterpoint
sound devitalising.
Much of this playing honours the introspection of the music, along with
its dance imperatives. The Chaconne from the Second Partita unfolds
with logic and surety. It does not much deviate from its direct course,
and nor is it subject to moments of excessive emotion - which is to
say that it’s at a distant remove from the coiled intensity of
the old Russian School in this music. One of her very best performances
is the Third Sonata in which her sense of characterisation is strongly
engaged and through the formal schema of Adagio, Fugue and Largo
we arrive, finally, at the welcome release of an ebullient Allegro
assai. With her steady control, and accumulation of expressive qualities,
Busch make these intensities the more complete. Lest this give the impression
of a certain metronomic determination about her playing - well, far
from it. She explores decided subtleties of rubati in the Preludio
of the Third Partita in particular.
In terms of phrasing, balance between left and right hand, and tonal
nuance these are excellent performances. Their slightly reserved, almost
interior dialogues may surprise; and so too the measured tempi. For
a historically informed set of the Sonatas and Partitas that reflects
technical and expressive control, these performances are highly commended.
Jonathan Woolf
