Yuri Liberzon Releases a Bach Album

from Yuri Liberzon’s Web site

According my archives, I first encountered guitarist Yuri Liberzon at an Old First Concerts recital at Old First Presbyterian Church in August of 2010. Liberzon was born in Novosibirsk in Russia and raised in Israel. He came to the United States in 2000 to study with Manuel Barrueco at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where he received both a Bachelor of Music degree and a Graduate Performance Diploma. He subsequently received a Master of Music degree from Yale University, studying again with Barrueco and with Benjamin Verdery. Back in November of 2017, I used this site to write about his first two solo albums, Ascension and ¡Acentuado!

This year saw the release of Liberzon’s latest solo album, consisting of guitar transcriptions of the three solo violin sonatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, BWV 1001 in G minor, BWV 1003 in A minor, and BWV 1005 in C major. The transcriptions were prepared by Barrueco. Apparently, Liberzon is now handling distribution of his recordings, all three of which may now be purchased in physical or digital form from a Web page on his Web site.

Bach’s manuscript alternates these three sonatas with three solo partitas. His own title for the entire collection was Sei Solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato (six solos for violin without bass accompaniment). Completed in 1720, the set was not published during his lifetime. The first publication was by Nikolaus Simrock, based in Bonn, in 1802. 1720 was roughly halfway through Bach’s tenure as Kapellmeister (director of music) for Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen. While Leopold himself played string instruments, he preferred the gamba and would probably have found the rich counterpoint of the solo violin sonatas too challenging. More likely the virtuoso Christian Ferdinand Abel played these sonatas for the Prince’s entertainment.

While the Prince may have been well entertained, it is worth considering that Bach may have written this collection of six pieces with the same pedagogical intentions that he outlined specifically in the text introduction to the keyboard Inventions and Sinfonias (BWV 772–801), which were also composed during his tenure at Köthen. At the very least Bach may have written the sonatas to demonstrate how a solo violin could be capable of playing a fugue. Indeed, the fugues get longer as Bach progressed through these three sonatas, almost as if the sonatas served as a gradus ad Parnassum for violinists with virtuoso aspirations. For that matter, each of the four movements of each of the three sonatas serves up its own unique coupling of inventive “ideas” with expressive (“cantabile”) performance, very much in the same spirit as BWV 772–801.

In transcribing these sonatas, it is clear that Barrueco developed his own “inventive ideas” that would capture not only the “ideas” behind Bach’s scores but also the ability of a guitarist to present equally convincing expressiveness. Given how much time Liberzon spent studying with Barrueco, we should not be surprised to encounter those same ideas and expressions in his performances of these three sonatas. My only regret is that the album is an “audio only” experience. I have encountered many of the solo violin compositions in recital; and the best performances are those that shape the expressiveness to establish communion with the audience, rather than simply showing off the soloist’s technical skills. (Gil Shaham is the first violinist whose name comes to mind in this regard.) Much as I enjoy this new album, its greatest virtue is that it leaves me eager to listen to Liberzon play these sonatas in a recital setting.