Search - Lara St. John :: Bach: The Six Sonatas & Partitas for Violin Solo [Hybrid SACD]

Realism please

Nycademon | Denver, CO USA | 10/10/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I kind of hate to rain on the parade of 5 star reviews, but in my opinion, this is just a good -- NOT notable -- version of Bach's sonatas and partitas.



I'm very familiar with releases of the complete sonatas and partitas by Itzhak Perlman, Nathan Milstein, and Henryk Szeryng. In my opinion, Szeryng's version (Label: Deutsche Grammophon ASIN: B000001GXY) is best, followed closely by Milstein (Label: Deutsche Grammophon ASIN: B000001H00). Perlman's is quite good, although I think his playing is a bit too "clean" and "Classical" for these Baroque works.



Additionally, on "Hilary Hahn Plays Bach" are the second and third partitas and the third sonata, and on "J.S. Bach: Violin Concertos; 3 Partitas" are Viktoria Mullova's version of the partitas. Hahn's version of Partita 2 is OK, though her tempo on the Ciaccona is way too slow. I like Mullova's partitas at least as much as Perlman's, because they're played beautifully, and her "take" on them is quite different from the others.



I would place St. John's version slightly below Hilary Hahn's, at the bottom of this list. St. John is unquestionably a gifted violinist, but her playing is flawed in places, she doesn't establish any sort of "mood", and this release doesn't compare well with Szeryng's and Milstein's versions of these works, which are simply phenomenal.



So please take all these 5 star reviews with a grain of salt. These performances are good, but there are many that are better.



UPDATE: Apparently, some folks haven't found this review helpful. In an effort to be more helpful, I'd like to provide the following: you can listen to this entire two CD set at Magnatune (www.magnatune.com) for free. Go there, listen to this thing, and then ask yourself if you really want to drop almost $30 on it. You might also want to listen to samples from the much better and less expensive releases I listed in my review. I did buy this set, and I consider it money badly spent. So listen, then decide."

Lovely, Lovely JS BACH

Kendra | 03/29/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Lara St. John is a superb violinist and a great intrepreter of Bach. I've been listening to Hillary Hahn play the same pieces and she is wonderful, too. But Lara has more "oomph" and sounds less technically motivated than Hahn. I mean no disparagement to Hahn here. St. John has the capacity to infuse high emotion into some very technically challenging solo violin pieces by the master. Much like Yo Yo Ma opened up a new audience to Bach's Cello Concerto's, St. John is doing the same for the solo Violin masterpieces of Bach.



Master musicians first learn the technique perfecting it to a high degree of precision, especially when playing Bach then they add the emotion to it. This is exceedingly difficult and only the greatest players pull it off convincingly. To say that St. John's Bach Violin work is "sweet" or "rapturous" would be close to the truth but something of an understatement. Listening to this music is like enjoying a fine wine, just a little bit can take you to lovely, stunning places that only the great master JS Bach could create. Bach was a gift to the world just as great players are such as St. John.



The CD artwork shows an oceanside view with St. John standing on the shore, confidently holding her violin. It's as if she's preparing the listener for the great voyage with Bach to wherever the listener's mind is led by the music. Flawless and stunning, Ms. St. John is a superb Bach violinist."

Kitsch

Eduardo Antico | ... | 06/17/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

""Baroque" does not mean strange dynamics and discontinuous phrasing. On top of this, Lara St. John seemed to be worried that we are not getting the point, and had the recording engineer attenuate the dynamic range to make it sound even more "Baroque". I thought she was suffering from incontinence when she was making this recording.



The recording was very uneven. The phrasing sounded like she forgot to breathe. And the engineering was the final straw. Church reverberation makes the music sound airy. Listen to Itzhak Perlman's EMI recording and you will immediately notice the difference.



Even to this day, the Bach Sonatas and Partitas still present a monumental challenge to every musician. In St. John's playing, I think she grossly underestimated the discipline and artistry that are required to perform and interpret these timeless pieces to a mere satisfactory level.



I cannot recommend such trivialized kitsch to anyone.

"