Bach (before Bach)
Bach before Bach
Chouchane Siranossian (violin), Balázs Máté (cello, bass violin), and Leonardo García Alarcón (harpsichord) record early- to late-baroque violin sonatas on Alpha (2021).
Siranossian’s program serves, in theory, as a warm-up act to Bach’s Sei Solo, BWV 1001-1006. This recital features works by Bach and those from composers the artists felt were important predecessors to Bach, including Farina, Walther, Schmelzer (Biber), Muffat, and von Westhoff. The program is curious for it focuses on works for violin and continuo, at least as a precursor, as the notes say, to Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas. While the inclusion of an encyclopedic review of important violin music before Bach this album is not, we should treat it as a well-programmed concert featuring pieces that are not perhaps the best well known from the baroque, but ones that a connoisseur would likely be familiar.
This is a connoisseur’s album, I feel, because even though you may have any number of these pieces already in your collection, rarely are they played with such intensity, if I dare say fire, confidence, and support. My only quibble with the album, I’ll say, is sound quality. Using loudspeakers you won’t be as distracted as I was listening with headphones to the rather live-sound of the acoustics. In a few cases I heard sounds of the musicians which revealed close miking despite the engineer's prference for a reverbrant sound. To the recording engineer’s praise, there is a three dimensionality to the sound, with all three instruments well represented in soundstage.
Biber’s Crucifixion sonata from his Rosenkranz sonatas is included here in the arrangement to A minor by Andreas Anton Schmelzer (who, we might be reminded, is not his brother, the more famous Schmelzer who is believed to have rubbed elbows with Biber). Victori der Christen applies a different programmatic story to the sonata, and ends with an extra scene. The scordatura tuning of this work forced Siranossian to use a different instrument; the difference in sound is appreciable, either because of the instrument or the special tuning. During the scene with double stopping, Siranossian’s playing is tight and technically brilliant. Máté’s introduction of paper in between the bass violin’s strings adds to the piece’s effect and color.
The opening to the Bach sonata, BWV 1023, is approached as an explosion and Siranossian handles the explosion with technical flair. The Muffat Sonata is an important piece, and long at almost twelve minutes. It’s challenging for its perpetual change in keys. With some performances the piece can drag on a bit; the more rhythmic sections with these musicians doesn’t disappoint, they push the tempo which heightens the effect of stylus fantasticus writing, enhancing the contrast between the section’s bookends.
The authorship of BWV 1024 is questionable; the sonata appeared on an album somewhat recently by Amandine Beyer. Here, Siranossian pits the opening, dark adagio of this piece with the single movement Fugue in G minor, BWV 1026, which I first heard performed by Siranossian’s mentor, Reinhard Goebel. The pair of movements works together, I think, and while I have collected as many readings of the fugue as I can, while many are interesting, few have approached the greatness recorded by Goebel. I think this reading is up there, if not stands to surpass Goebel’s. Beyer’s is good, as is Johannes Pramsohler’s recording. But this one just has an energy that doesn’t stop.
Putting Bach at a high mark and looking at the types of music that may have inspired his writing is, I think, an easy programmatic rationale for an hour’s worth of music. It would work for many other composers, I’d think too; what I think this album does successfully with its program, in ways similar to Beyer’s, is to highlight some music of obviously high quality that may not be as familiar to modern audiences, at least, not as well-known as the Sonatas and Partitas. Beyond the success of the program, the Bach pieces (spurious as some are), the Westhoff quote from his third sonata, the Muffat, and the A.A. Schmelzer are together first-class efforts. This is an exciting and enjoyable release with interviews of the performers serving as liner notes.
Finally, props to the art department at Alpha for the interior picture of a violin. The smokiness takes on meaning in the wake of Siranossian's energetic playing.
