Renate Eggebrecht plays Bach and Silvestrov - 8/09/2014

Yet another Bach recording? Why not! After all, Johann Sebastian Bach's Six Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin are the ne plus ultra for their instrument. They also pose a monumental challenge to every violinist – a challenge in which musical substance, tone quality and technical mastery are tested no less supremely than the player’s skill in characterisation and the ability to breathe tension into large-scale form.

In her solo performances of Bach, Renate Eggebrecht pulls out every stop from a lifetime of experience both as an active musician and as an attentive observer of half a century in the cultivation of 'early music'. On her Troubadisc label she has presented many premier recordings and challenging programmes of major works for unaccompanied violin. And her understanding of 'historically informed performance practice' stands well apart from current tends and short-sighted ideologies. Her foremost concern is to let the music speak for itself from the natural flow inherent in its limitless interplay of harmony, metre and counterpoint. Manic approaches that merely stress the beats of the bar are far removed from her way of thinking. Her playing brings out a compelling sense of linear flux, of intricate details in rich polyphonic textures, of feelings subtly yet lucidly articulated.

In this music, mastery will not countenance superficialities. It does not reside in the requisite displays of virtuosity but in the music's intellectual and spiritual message, brought forth with consummate poise and controlled expression. The division into three CDs also symbolises the trinity of Christian holidays that underlies the entire cycle, as has been demonstrated in detail by the Bach scholar Helga Thoene.

How to proceed after Bach? The conclusion, one might think, would have to be at once open-ended and fractured, more question than answer. Nothing could have better achieved this effect in atmosphere and bearing than Postludium II, written by the great contemporary Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov in 1981. Silvestrov is a musician who has always had one foot in the past and another in the future. Bach is followed by a dream of Bach ...

This album demands to be listened to and understood as a holistic entity. It offers the possibility of plunging into each of the three cycles of the Trinity, three self-contained worlds of unified antitheses. It is an obeisance to the all-embracing musical mind of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose timeless modernity speaks to us clearly and unmistakably from each and every phrase.


"I let Bach decide what his music has to say"

"Fascinating in concentration and expressiveness, a very interesting in their spiritual depth interpretation, considerable power development and penetration of great forms!"

(Klassik heute - 2014)


Bach, beautiful and expressive

Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonatas & Partitas BWV 1001-1006, Valentin Silvestrov: Postlude II; Renate Eggerbrecht, violin; 3 CDs Troubadisc 01444; 7/11 (155 ')

Renate Eggebrecht's interpretations, as well as Furtwängler's Bach and Handel, can not be denied a certain genius. The soloist plays a thoroughly romantic Bach with slow tempi in the slow movements. This then leads the listener to a completely different perception of Bach's compositions.
  It enables us to experience Bach in all its beauty and with an immense range of expressions right now, with Renate Eggebrecht. And if then the music is still played and interpreted as great and consistent as here by Renate Eggebrecht, then you can recommend the listener this Bach box but good conscience. As a bonus, there are Valentin Silvestrov's Postlude II from the years 1981-82.

(pizzicato, 8/10/2014)