Rating: 3/5
Review:
Technically superb but emotionally unengaging
This isn't one of my favourite recordings of these
magnificent works. The music is sublime,
of course, and Zehetmair is a superb violinist, but his interpretation doesn't
speak to me in quite the same way as some others.
Bach's music here is astonishing. It is rich, varied and full of expression
with that distinctive pulse running through each movement - but Bach's music
scarcely needs a review from me.
Zehetmair is technically quite miraculously good in places; these are
very demanding works and he shows complete mastery of even the most difficult
passages. However, his interpretation
seems extremely detached and cerebral to me, with little of the human feeling
which I want in this music. He has
plainly thought deeply about every movement, but I have a sense of him being in
a world by himself, immersed in his thinking about the music and for me he
doesn't quite allow the listener into his world with him.
The sense of detachment is exacerbated by quite a dry
acoustic, with little resonance or warmth, so my overall sense having listened
to the great Chaconne, for example, is of being left rather wrung out and
exhausted with the effort but with little emotional reward.
I don't want to be too critical – these are personal
responses, after all. Zehetmair produces
a technical tour de force here, others may well engage much better with this
than I do and at this price you've very little to lose. Personally, though, I'll be sticking to my
dearly loved recordings by Rachel Podger, Viktoria Mullova and Isabelle Faust.
All of them engage and move me deeply in their different ways, which I'm afraid
Zehetmair's recording simply doesn't.
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