Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Eugene Ysaÿe
Performer: Antje Weithaas
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Avi Music
Catalogue: AVI8553381
Release: 2017
Size: 399 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Bach: Sonata for solo violin No. 3 in C major, BWV1005
01. I. Adagio
02. II. Fuga
03. III. Largo
04. IV. Allegro assai
Ysaÿe: Sonata for solo violin in E major, Op. 27 No. 6
05. Allegro giusto non troppo vivo
Ysaÿe: Sonata for solo violin in E minor, Op. 27 No. 4
06. I. Allemande. Lento maestoso
07. II. Sarabande. Quasi Lento
08. III. Finale. Presto ma non troppo
Bach: Partita for solo violin No. 1 in B minor, BWV1002
09. I. Allemanda
10. II. Double
11. III. Corrente
12. IV. Double
13. V. Sarabande
14. VI. Double
15. VII. Tempo di Borea
16. VIII. Double
It was Antje Weithaas’ own idea to jointly record Johann Sebastian Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin in conjunction with Eugène Ysaÿe’s six solo violin sonatas. “The works by Bach are rather well-known”, she remarks. “But what about the Ysaÿe sonatas? Ysaÿe is invariably shoved into the virtuoso corner, but as a composer he is to be taken quite seriously!'”
These solo works by Bach inspired Belgian violin celebrity Eugène Ysaÿe to write his Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, op. 27, dedicating each one of them to a great violinist of his time. Ysaÿe is regarded as the main representative of the Franco-Flemish violin school, closely associated with the fin-de-siècle period when architecture was awash with flowery ornaments. In painting and poetry, meanwhile, symbolism and sensuality abounded. Artists either adored or detested Wagner, who became the main subject of musical discussions throughout Europe. Ysaÿe burst in on the concert scene as a child prodigy, studied in Brussels and Paris, travelled the world and eventually took up the directorship of Brussels Conservatory. He started to conduct more frequently – particularly the “Société Symphonique des Concerts Ysaÿe”, an orchestra he had founded himself. He also found more time for composing. Ysaÿe is said to have conceived the plan of the Six Violin Sonatas within the course of one day in 1924, when he was 66 years old. In terms of violin technique and musical expression, each sonata is the character portrait of a renowned violinist of his day.
Antje Weithaas began playing the violin when she was 4 1/2 years old. She went on to study with Professor Werner Scholz at the Hanns Eisler University of Music in Berlin. In 1987 she won the Kreisler Competition in Graz, in 1988 the Bach Competition in Leipzig, and in 1991 the International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition in Hannover. Antje Weithaas has held a professorship for violin at the Hanns Eisler University of Music in Berlin since 2004; she plays a violin made by Peter Greiner in 2001. Her stage presence and charisma rivet an audience without ever detracting from the work being performed. Unpretentiously, always allowing the music to take centre stage, Antje Weithaas delivers every detail of the score with utterly convincing musical intelligence and unrivalled technical mastery.
‘It’s a treat…The ever probing Weithaas adroitly combines poetry, technical wizardry and humanity.’ –Fiona Maddocks, The Observer, 3rd December 2017