Soovin Kim: Bach’s Tremendous Technique & Style | Part 1

TWO CONCERT EVENINGS OF INCREDIBLE SOLO VIOLIN WORKS

Artistic Director Soovin Kim will perform the Mount Everest for a violinist: Bach’s complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, over two concert evenings.

This first concert includes Bach’s spirited Partita No. 3 in E Major and his technically challenging Sonata No. 2 in A Minor in the first half, then his spiritually and emotionally powerful Partita No. 2 in D Minor, with its beloved Chaconne, to close the evening’s program.

When the world shut down in 2020, one of the first musicians in the nation to step onto a stage to share desperately needed music with the world was our own artistic director, acclaimed violinist Soovin Kim. CMNW streamed his monumental performance of Bach’s complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin from Massachusetts’s majestic Jordan Hall for thousands of home-bound viewers. Now, it is finally our honor and privilege to have him perform them LIVE! This will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience this marathon performance over two evenings, and you’ll hear of some of Bach’s most moving works…performed by CMNW’s own violinist extraordinaire.

Presented in collaboration with Oregon Bach Festival.

“Whenever Kim plays, the music climbs another level.”

— Oregon ArtsWatch

 

The Old Church
Thursday, 4/3 • 7:30 pm PT

Program

Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.

BACH’S Complete Sonatas & Partitas Program Notes

Even for a composer whose life’s work consisted of one unprecedented project after another, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin stand in a category of their own. These six monumental experiments in technique and style are nothing less than the pinnacle of Baroque violin composition.

On the title page of Bach’s handwritten score, and before each of the sonatas and partitas, he wrote that the music should be played “without Accompanying Bass.” He repeated this instruction so insistently because most violinists and listeners in his day would have considered a violin solo incomplete without a keyboard or strummed instrument to accompany it. In fact, despite Bach’s clear instructions, countless composers have attempted to “complete” his solos with their own piano accompaniments through the years.

This reluctance to accept Bach’s intentions stems in part from the near complete lack of a precedent for his music. Some composers had written short sections or movements for unaccompanied violin, or in a few cases self-contained works, but none had ever attempted a project with the scope of Bach’s sonatas and partitas—and for good reason. The violin’s compressed treble range imposes a significant limit on how a composer can write for the instrument. In comparison with the wide range and deep tone of the cello, the violin offers few options for building full, resonant sounds. But these very restrictions presented the sort of challenge Bach loved most.

Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel remembered that his late father played the violin “cleanly and penetratingly.” Indeed, even though he made his name primarily as a keyboardist, the elder Bach clearly had a high level of technical skill on the violin. The sonatas and partitas have long been considered first-rate teaching pieces; Bach incorporated challenges from every corner of violin technique, and they range from very difficult to nearly insurmountable. But they are not just exercises intended to help students develop one skill or another. On the contrary, each sonata and partita subtly integrates technical challenges into a carefully crafted structure filled with melodic and harmonic brilliance.

The three sonatas follow a standardized four-movement trajectory that begins with a slow introduction, followed by an imitative second movement, a wild card slow movement, and a quick finale. This form would provide a prototype for the classical sonata form later popularized by composers like Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The three partitas (or “partias,” as Bach spelled the word), on the other hand, are dance suites, each consisting of a handful of well-known Baroque dances. They range from the dignified, introductory Allemande to the more carefree Bourée and the lively, upbeat Gigue.

No evidence remains to determine exactly when Bach wrote the sonatas and partitas, but he finished them by 1720, about midway through his court appointment in the German town of Cöthen. During his time there, he had no responsibilities to write church music, so he instead focused on secular music, including the Brandenburg concertos, the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and the cello suites, in addition to the sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin.

Evidence is also slim as to how the sonatas and partitas might have been performed during Bach’s lifetime. Some violinists argue that an overarching structure runs through the set, and that they should be performed in Bach’s original order. But each sonata and partita also stands on its own, and violinists frequently perform them individually or in carefully selected subsets, as in tonight’s performance.

Like much of Bach’s output, the sonatas and partitas gathered dust for decades after his death. Even after their publication in 1802, few violinists recognized their potential, until the acclaimed virtuoso Joseph Joachim added them to his repertoire in the mid-1800s. They soon proved a powerful source of inspiration for composers during the Romanic era; Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, and Johannes Brahms all felt compelled to elaborate on Bach’s music with their own pianistic embellishments.

At once intimate and deeply emotionally resonant, the sonatas and partitas are widely viewed to be among Bach’s most expressive works. The famous Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D Minor provides them with a lengthy, emotional climax. In it, Bach pulls profound expression from the most intimate of materials: a single violin, a four measure bass line, and 64 variations over that line. Johannes Brahms commented, “If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”

—© Ethan Allred

J. S. BACH Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006

J. S. BACH (1685-1750) Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006

I. Preludio
II. Loure
III. Gavotte en Rondeau
IV. Menuett I
V. Menuett II
VI. Bourrée
VII. Gigue

J. S. BACH Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003

J. S. BACH (1685-1750) Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003

I. Grave
II. Fuga
III. Andante
IV. Allegro

J. S. BACH Violin Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004

J. S. BACH (1685-1750) Violin Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004

I. Allemande
II. Courante
III. Sarabande
IV. Gigue
V. Chaconne

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