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02/18/2025
“J.S. Bach: The Complete Violin Concertos”
Johann Sebastian Bach: Violin Concerto in E major, BWV 1042 – Concerto for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord in A minor, BWV 1044 – Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor, BWV 1060R – Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052R – Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041 – Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043 – Violin Concerto in G minor, BWV 1056R – Concerto for Three Violins in D major, BWV 1064R
James Ehnes, Yosuke Kawasaki, Jessica Linnebach (violin), Joanne G’froerer (flute), Charles Hamann (oboe), Luc Beauséjour (harpsichord), Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster), Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra
Recording: Southam Hall, Ottowa, Ontario, Canada (July 7, 2023, & January 11‑12, 2024) – 125’39
Analekta AN 2 8893-4 – Booklet in French and English
 
As far as I can recall, I haven’t heard the violinist James Ehnes in well over a decade, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of him here. I have, however, more recently heard his collaborator on this recording, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra (CNACO), in its titular hall, and knew it to be a fine ensemble capable of a warm, nicely blended sound—no doubt a mark of the years Pinchas Zukerman spent at its helm. Most of the other soloists in the double and triple concertos recorded here are drawn from the orchestra’s first desks, and they all acquit themselves well. This is an earnestly complete set of Bach’s concertante works including violin; a number of other violinists are apt to record the solo concertos, the D minor double, and perhaps the Concerto for violin and oboe, but BWV 1044 was new to me. It’s especially striking for a slow movement in which the three solo instruments often play without accompaniment (even if the harpsichord has the effect of a continuo) and which features what sounds to me like more pizzicato than usual for the era.
I like Bach played on modern instruments and with something of a Romantic sensibility, but this approach does have its pitfalls, which, for me, chiefly amount (in the violin works, at least) to making heavy weather of passagework. A truly brilliant interpreter—Adolf Busch in his day, and to a lesser degree perhaps Hilary Hahn in our own—can subvert this rule by imbuing a consistently rhetorical approach with an eloquence borne of deep feeling and conviction married to musical intelligence, but as a general rule a more delicate approach serves as a sound basis, as long as more obviously expressive or dramatic passages receive their due. In the present set, the rather clipped and light opening of the E major Concerto suggested a “period” approach, but the minimal use of vibrato and the occasional tapered phrase ending did not turn out to be defining notes of the performance, such is the prevailing warmth of tone and breadth of phrase. I am especially grateful that hairpin dynamics seldom, if ever, become a mannerism.
James Ehnes perhaps permits himself a touch more “Romanticism” (let’s rather call it musical robustness) than his band displays, but in any case he comes close to the golden mean here. His tone is not the largest you’ll ever hear, but it’s not far off either, and he knows how to make his fiddle sing and to add some thrust where needed. No bogging down in the passagework here—his playing is delicate but never underpowered. Yosuke Kawasaki, the CNACO’s concertmaster, matches Ehnes’s tone and phrasing nicely in BWV 1043, as he and associate concertmaster Jessica Linnebach do in BWV 1064R. The booklet note leaves me unsure whether Ehnes conducts or lets the orchestra follow Kawasaki, but the accompaniment keeps up with the famous soloist in liveliness and sensitivity.
I would like to think that everyone who enjoys this music, performed in any style, will find much to appreciate here. There is so much musicality on offer that nods toward either stylistic extreme feel less like point‑making than part of an organic artistic experience. I wouldn’t mind hearing these works done on an even larger scale, but I can’t bring myself to complain while listening to Ehnes and company here.
Samuel Wigutow
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