Barton Pine Corelli

'Testament' is Rachel Barton Pine's very personal homage to the music of J. S. Bach, on which she performs the composer's complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin in the acoustic of her hometown St. Pauls Church in Chicago, where she first heard and fell in love with Bach's music.

Rachel Barton Pine, a young violinist who has made headlines by trying to attract audiences unfamiliar with classical music, now makes a splash of a different kind: she ventures into the field of historical performance with an ambitious disc combining some of Bach's solo violin music with similar contemporary or slightly older works by other composers. Bach's Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001, opens the proceedings; Barton Pine argues in her lengthy notes (which range all the way from her girlhood experiences playing the violin in a Chicago church to detailed historical exegeses) that this piece most clearly shows Bach's links to the solo violin tradition in which he worked.

Rachel Barton Pine has often performed the Sonatas and Partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach in recital, but her 2016 release on Avie is her first studio recording of this essential masterwork for violinists. Using a Baroque bow on a modernized 1742 Guarneri de Gesù violin, Pine plays the Sonatas and Partitas with crisp accentuation, transparent voicing, and a warm tone, much as she does in her concert performances.

Any album of solo instrumental music subjects itself to a higher degree of vulnerability, for the artist must stand alone on his/her performance for the duration of the CD. Rachel Barton Pine succeeds brilliantly on these pieces for the solo violin (and narrator, as with Ferdinand the Bull), most of which have a Latin flavor. Barton's assured, solid technique, and strong musicianship carry her through the whole album. The Prélude Ibérique is one such example, which is full of fire and passion, an absolute joy to hear.

Chicago-based violinist Rachel Barton Pine bounced back from a devastating accident (she was dragged for several hundred feet by a commuter train after her case strap was snared in the automated doors) and has delivered innovative programs in recordings for Chicago's Cedille label and, increasingly, for major labels. Here she tackles mainstays of the violin concerto repertory, the five Mozart violin concertos and the Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola, and orchestra, K. 364. It's often a charming set, not only because of Barton Pine's efforts, but also because of the nature of her interaction with the conductor, 90-year-old Neville Marriner, leading the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

Contemporaries, amicable friends, and even mutual admirers, the legacies of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Clement could not have ended up being more different. In fact, Clement's name is little known today save for music history buffs who recognize the close relationship he had with Beethoven and are aware that Beethoven wrote his Violin Concerto with Clement in mind. Violinist Rachel Barton Pine is heard on this Cedille album playing these two closely intertwined concertos with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Jose Serebrier. In fact, this recording represents the first for the Clement concerto, a work that has remained essentially dormant for almost two centuries.