Music for Violin and Bass: OVNI Baroque
Back in May of 2021 an album came out that I’d missed; it features baroque violinist Emmanuelle Dauvin performing works by Bach and Biber. Right up my alley.
The Bach partita in B minor (BWV 1002), which is mis-labeled in my Qobuz edition as B-sharp minor, is the only solo work on the album which is gorgeously played. I like the sound of her violin very much, and the recording engineers did a good job at capturing enough detail with the church acoustic. There’s a particular gutsiness to her voice and articulation that I think works well here, not to mention the other sonatas. It’s probably best sampled from the 13th track, the Borea from the Bach partita.
The other Bach work on this recording is the first half, movements I-II of the sonata in E minor, BWV 1023. I don’t have access to the liner notes to know why the other two movements weren’t included. The second movement of this work I’m expecting to be slightly faster despite being marked adagio, ma non tanto. Dauvin’s interpretation is somewhat stunted, with phrases segmented it seems between what appears in the violin part and that in the bass. This dichotomy might feel disjointed at first, as it did for me, but when you consider how it’s being played, one has a little sympathy for highlighting the two parts so independently.
For all the pieces on this album requiring continuous bass support, Dauvin provides it herself, using the pedalboard of an organ, while playing the violin part. Reading up on this album it became apparent this model was based on a story of one Nicholas Bruhns, a contemporary of Buxtehude who would play this way, with the organ and violin together, all by himself.
It means two things for us: one, there’s no chordal bass support as we might get from someone properly playing the organ; two, these pieces by Biber and Bach are being played by one person! Okay, I mean, that’s just surreal.
And she plays the violin so effectively, I think, that I’d have high praise even if she wasn’t the complete show. The leanness of the bass part isn’t really a problem for me, in fact, I find it’s simplicity at times rather fitting and welcome in comparison to, say, some of the recordings of Biber’s Rosenkranz-Sonaten that go overboard in the continuo department. Biber’s music, which at times contains those long pedal tones, is all at home here.
The acoustic captured in this recording elevates the music and the mechanical bits about the organ, too, I rather liked hearing in this album. It made me feel as if I was there, an effect amplified with headphones.
Dauvin feels at home with this repertoire. She studied with Amandine Beyer, who I also admire. One can’t say if there is a long protocol for more performances like these, but the experiment, I think, works. I think fans of this repertoire who already have these pieces in their collection can find value in these high-quality readings. The effect is beautiful, and in terms of the mechanical and human effort it requires to play this music, it’s all the more a marvel.
Highly recommended.
