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Sirkka-Liisa Kaakinen-Pilch “Negotiates” Bach

John Greene

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

For many violinists, recording a cycle of Bach’s three Sonatas and three Partitas for solo violin has come to represent a rite of passage, a culmination of their art distinguishing their own interpretive values and abilities from those of their peers. Since Yehudi Menuhin offered the first complete cycle piecemeal from 1934-1936 for EMI, nearly every violinist of note in the acoustic, electric, and digital era has recorded these beloved works, with at times boldly different results. I count these works among my favorites of Bach, and while I have enjoyed many recordings of them over the years, this one by Sirkka-Liisa Kaakinen-Pilch is unquestionably the slowest, most tediously eccentric rendering I’ve ever heard.

To give you an idea of just how slow we’re talking about here, compare the total timings of my four longstanding reference recordings to Kaakinen-Pilch’s effort (rounded to the nearest minute). Arthur Grumiaux completed his legendary virtuosic 1961 cycle for Philips in an hour and 53 minutes; after having already recorded the cycle twice for EMI, Nathan Milstein returned to these works a third time in 1973, this time for Deutsche Grammophon, completing his equally distinguished cycle in two hours and eight minutes; in 1983, Sigiswald Kuijken offered a ground-breaking period-instrument account for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi with a similar timing.

More recently, in 2006, John Holloway recorded a wonderfully inventive, at times broadly paced interpretation for ECM clocking in at two hours and 12 minutes. Here, for Ondine, Kaakinen-Pilch takes two hours and 27 minutes to complete her cycle. Even Menuhin, who at times took numerous, expansively sustained, romanticized liberties throughout his earlier cycle (he eventually returned to EMI for a much swifter stereo remake), still managed to finish in what at the time seemed a record two hours and 17 minutes.

There are a few moments, such as in the fourth-movement Giga of the second Partita and the first-movement Preludio of the third Partita, where Kaakinen-Pilch’s performance is stylishly on the mark. It’s just that in most of the equally familiar, animated, melodic movements such as the seventh-movement Tempo di Borea of the first Partita, second-movement Fuga of the second Sonata, opening Allemanda of the second Partita, second-movement Fuga of the third Sonata, and fourth-movement Menuet of the third Partita, Kaakinen-Pilch has a tendency to sound as if she’s negotiating this music rather than simply playing it. There’s a pervasive sense of restraint throughout these performances, a bewildering hesitancy undermining the dance element so critical to these works. Perilously bordering on atonality, her performance of the opening Adagio of the third Sonata truly must be heard to be believed.

The sound is fine. Zbigniew Pilch’s notes offer a nice perspective on Bach’s influences and how he eventually came to compose these inspired works. For completists only.

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Recording Details:

Reference Recording: Kuijken (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi); Grumiaux (Philips); Milstein (Deutsche Grammophon); Holloway (ECM)

    Soloists: Sirkka-Liisa Kaakinen-Pilch (violin)

  • Record Label: Ondine - 1241-2D
  • Medium: CD

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