Rating: 4/5
Review:
A good Bach disc
Esther Apituley is a very fine viola player who has here
recorded movements transcribed from Bach's solo works for violin and
cello. The transcriptions work very well
and in some of the violin works especially the richer sound of the viola gives
them a lovely depth. The programme
itself is of individual movements from various sonatas, partitas and suites and
it did feel a little fragmented to me; Bach's ordering of the movements in the
original works is an important part of their structure, and these individual
movements didn't work quite so well for me as a sequence.
Apituley plays very well.
She is emotionally expressive without resorting to inappropriate
Romantic gestures and her ornamentation and very restrained use of vibrato are
excellently judged, I think. For
example, the opening track is the adagio from the first Violin Sonata BWV1001,
which is powerful and thoughtful with a simply wonderful sound from the viola. Some other movements are as good, but I
didn't quite find this depth everywhere.
The disc closes (almost inevitably) with the mighty chaconne from the D
minor Violin Partita BWV1004; it is well played but doesn't really have the
impact of the great performances by people like Rachel Podger, Viktoria
Mullova, Isabelle Faust and others.
Overall, I think this is a good disc with very fine great
highlights which is well worth looking into for any Bach enthusiast. For some outstanding Bach on the viola, I'd
recommend Maxim Rysanov's transcriptions of the Cello Suites, and for wonderful
transcriptions of some of the solo violin works Suzanne Heinrich's viola gamba
transcriptions. However, there is some
fine playing here and while it's not on a par with some of the truly great Bach
recordings, I can still recommend it.
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