Bach in a time of Coronavirus

What can violinists do when they're stuck at home? Julia Fischer's solution? Call some friends and record a joint Bach Chaccone, of course. In a Facebook post, she and her colleague explained:

I had the idea to do a "quarantine version" of Bach's Chaconne together with some other violinists. Here's what Augustin Hadelich says about how it started: "In early April, I was talking to my friend The Official Julia Fischer, and she told me about an idea she had during this quarantine: what if she played the first 8 bars of Bach's Chaconne and then asked friends and colleagues to record the other variations? I immediately jumped on board, and volunteered to compile the videos from everybody, and now the video is ready! Other members of the "cast" include (in order of appearance): Renaud Capuçon, Klaidi Sahatçi, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Nicola Benedetti, Andreas Janke, Daniel Röhn, Lisa Batiashvili, Lena Neudauer, James Ehnes, Stefan Jackiw, Rudens Turku and Vadim Gluzman! (And everyone plays more than once) It was really fun to work on something together, and this video will make for a lovely memory of this strange time in which we are living!"

Watch the complete performance(s) below:

Main image is a screenshot from the video. Images are used under the principle of "fair use" for the purposes of review and study, and will be removed at the request of the copyright holder(s). Read an extract from my article for The Strad magazine about Shostakovich's violin music, including interviews with Julia Fischer and Vadim Gluzman, here.

Proms week 5 - All the Russians

Fewer of the tripartite, double intervalled Proms grace this season.  They look good on paper but are hell to stand through and for that reason I wimped out and listened to Prom 43 (Litton/RPO/Wang - Copland/Bax/Barber/Bartok/Prokofiev - August 16th) on the radio.  The programme drew on the musical legacy of conductor and double bassist Serge Koussevitsky who had a hand in commissioning many of the twentieth century's great orchestral works.  A few of the works on show here were only tangentially linked to Koussevitsky - Prokofiev's Fourth Symphony was performed in its longer 1947 version and not the original 1930 version performed by Koussevistky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Barber's Adagio for Strings owed its existence (in orchestral form at least) to Toscanini.

It was a long but nonetheless enticing and unusual programme, particularly for the Royal Philharmonic, who must have relished being allowed away from Beethoven and Mozart for a night.  The highlights were a rare outing for Arnold Bax's Second Symphony, which grew on me after a second hearing, by which time the initial over load of post-romantic harmony and complexity had started to reveal a compelling journey.  The original version of Prokofiev's Fourth Symphony is a favourite of mine and while I'd not claim it to be one of his greatest works, it does include a couple of wonderful episodes dropped for the more symphonic spread of the revised score.  Litton is a fan of the later version, telling Radio 3 that he thought Prokofiev had 'fixed' the first version's problems.  I hope he fulfils his promise to play it more often.

I stood for Prom 44 (Salonen/Philharmonia/Batiashvili - Shostakovich/Stravinsky/Tchaikovsky - August 17th), though my legs told me the programme was longer than it needed to be.  It was a packed house - I was standing further from the stage than I'd have liked to have been and some of the mischief of the suite from Shostakovich's ballet The Age of Gold was lost in the Albert Hall's temperamental acoustic.  Luckily, Lisa Batiashvili projected her solo line in Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto beautifully and her volume was never at the expense of warmth of tone.  I felt she coasted a little through the first two movements, really hitting her stride with an impassioned third movement and making the most of Shostakovich's astounding cadenza.

Another great violin concerto at the Proms

We've had the Elgar and the Brahms; now Lisa Batiashvili brings Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto to the Proms.  Listen from 7.30pm.  Can she match the increadible heights of Julia Fischer's performance of the same work last year?  While we wait for the answer, watch the man the work was written for:  David Oistrakh.