Writing about Bach's six sonatas and partitas for solo violin often focuses on the nature of the music: Are the pieces humanistic in tone? Do they reflect deep spiritual-numerological concerns? But the first thing the average listener is likely to notice about them is their sheer difficulty: their monumental quality comes in part from the fact that, as with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the musicians are struggling to re-create the music. That's partly the result of playing the music on a violin that wasn't built for it, and although there are plenty of recordings on a Baroque violin there are fewer players who have the means to deliver the music cleanly and confidently on one.
Gottfried von der Goltz, first violin and conductor of the first-rate Freiburger Barockorchester comes back with a new album dedicated to the violin sonatas of a young - and already brilliant - Telemann. Rarely recorded, these works show a very surprising form as they allow the musician total freedom of expression and ornamentation. These features demonstrate also the unique creative inventiveness already in germ in Telemann’s music.