Hadelich’s Recording of Bach for Solo Violin

Violinist Augustin Hadelich (from the booklet for his new Bach album)

I must confess that, by now, I have probably lost count of the number of recordings I have of performances of the complete set of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001–1006). Nevertheless, having listened to violinist Augustin Hadelich perform the BWV 1004 partita in D minor (the one whose concluding chaconne is only slightly shorter than the combined duration of the four preceding movements) in the video stream of his Atterbury House Sessions recital, I could not resist the opportunity to listen to his take on the entire collection.

Fortunately, the opportunity was easy to seize, since Warner Classics had released Hadelich’s recording of that collection at the beginning of this past April. Apparently, I am not the only one to be drawn to this new collection, since, as I write this, the Amazon.com Web page informs me that the album will be back in stock on May 30. In the context of this popularity, it is worth noting that this music was not published during Bach’s lifetime. Indeed, it was not published until 1802, over half a century after Bach’s death, when Nikolaus Simrock released it for purchase in Bonn.

To be fair, however, publication was probably not on Bach’s mind when he wrote these six compositions. The surviving autograph manuscript dates from 1720, which Bach was Kapellmeister at Köthen. Since Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, was a Calvinist, the music that Bach composed for him was primarily instrumental; and, unfortunately, the Prince had to devote much of his budget to the Prussian military. Thus, while Bach had a good personal relationship with him, that relationship was not reinforced by very much remuneration.

It is unclear why Bach wrote this collection of sonatas and partitas. It is easy to conjecture that they were written for pedagogical purposes, intended for members of Bach’s own family, if no one else. Another possibility is that one of the Köthen violinists was Christian Ferdinand Abel, who was equally talented in playing both violin and gamba. Thus, Bach may have written these pieces to provide Abel with opportunities to impress the Prince and members of his court; and the richness of polyphonic writing (both explicit and implicit) found in Bach’s compositions would have given Abel an abundance of opportunities to display his talents.

That is basically how violinists have subsequently approached this music, at least over the period of the many recordings made by those violinists. For the most part those recordings serve as platforms to display the technical skills of the performers, possibly to the extent of overshadowing any sense of a personal approach to expressiveness. Fortunately, Hadelich is one of those violinists that has consistently displayed the ability to give performances in which technical skill and expressive rhetoric are presented with equal balance. Indeed, the “bandwidth” of Hadelich’s interpretations is so wide that it would almost be an injustice to listen to this recording in a single sitting from beginning to end. (For that matter, readers may recall that, in his Atterbury video, which concluded with BWV 1004, I suggested that even a moderately short intermission break prior to performing the partita would have been advisable to allow the viewer to savor the many details of both technique and expressiveness.)

Audio playback technology now facilitates listening to these sonatas and partitas individually, and that is the best way to appreciate how much Bach put into the score and how much Hadelich has drawn out of that score.