John Holloway

John Holloway and Davitt Moroney have set up a musically rewarding partnership in these brilliantly inventive works, furthermore adding to their programme the two lovely sonatas for violin and continuo long attributed to Bach, and justly so. In both of them they are joined by Susan Sheppard (continuo cello). For these sonatas Moroney has preferred a chamber organ to a harpsichord.

These two discs contain Leclair's 12 sonatas for two unaccompanied violins en duo. He produced them in two sets of six, the earlier one, Op. 3, dating from 1730, the later one from 1747-9. Barely a handful have previously been recorded, so these new issues make an important addition to the baroque catalogue. Leclair more than any of his French contemporaries implemented the technical developments in violin playing which were taking place in Italy in the hands of the post-Corelli generation.

Biber's 15 Mystery Sonatas with their additional Passacaglia for unaccompanied violin were written in about 1678 and dedicated to his employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg. Each Sonata is inspired by a section of the Rosary devotion of the Catholic Church which offered a system of meditation on 15 Mysteries from the lives of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. The music isn't, strictly speaking, programmatic, though often vividly illustrative of events which took place in the life of Christ.

John Holloway’s recital of mid 17th century music mines the rich sonic possibilities of a highly unusual instrumental combination: baroque violin with basso continuo provided by harpsichord and organ played simultaneously by two musicians, both realising the figured bass to the full harmonic, contrapuntal and rhythmic potential of their instruments. Aloysia Assenbaum and Lars Ulrik Mortensen brilliantly support Holloway’s exhilarating account of Bertali’s "Chiacona" and move with him through the mysteries of Schmelzer’s "Sonatae Unarum Fidium".

It's hard to believe this CD was done with only a violin, viola da gama and harpsichord. This is polyphonic music at its finest. It does tribute to Buxtehude, who preceded Bach. The ensemble is perfect - the instruments complement each other. When they go from slow to fast, it is remarkable to hear the contrast. These are expert musicians with a complete mastery of their instruments. They use loud-soft as easily as any masters of the Baroque. The result is joyous, lively and entertaining.

Rarely has this music been played so naturally and with seeming effortlessness, with such a commanding knowledge of both formal proportions and idiomatic character. John Holloway, one of the most distinguished baroque violinists of our time, has researched and practiced these works for forty years. Specializing in the repertoire from the baroque period (1600-1750) he perceives Bach in the context of his predecessors and contemporaries - such as composers like Schmelzer, Biber, Veracini (whose works he has presented in highly praised recordings in recent years) rather than in the perspective of romantic and modern violin literature.

After a programme of works thematically spun around Renaissance composer John Dowland’s Lachrimae Pavans (ECM 2189), violinist John Holloway and his ensemble now devote their art to Baroque composer Henry Purcell’s “fantazias”. Commenting on the fantasias in his detailed liner note, Holloway remarks how “it is tempting to see their brilliant distillation of the very best of Byrd, Lawes, Jenkins and Locke as a personal farewell to a kind of music, which in Purcell’s own chamber music would soon be superseded by sonatas.” Purcell’s fantasias are regarded as some of the finest and most intricately wrought works in the genre, embracing profound counterpoint and a great command of all of the polyphonal techniques of the time. Holloway and the ensemble’s reading of the three- and four-part fantasias offers deep insight into the compositions’ fabric, revealing a fresh perspective of a composer with, as Holloway notes, “an extraordinary ability to walk the fine line between joy and sorrow, to beautifully express the melancholy which was such a characteristic mood of his times.”

About Dario Castello and Giovanni Battista Fontana, two Italian composers from the turn of the 17th century, musical scholarship hasn’t much to tell us. We know as little about Castello, who was leading an ensemble at St. Mark’s around 1629, as we do about the exact birth and death dates of Fontana, who came from Brescia and probably perished during the 1630 outbreak of plague in Padua. Yet there are a number of surviving works by both men that reveal them to have been remarkable composers for the violin. Two books by Castello of sonate concertate in one to four parts, in stil moderno with continuo, were printed during the composer’s lifetime. In his new recording violinist John Holloway has selected a number of sonatas from this collection to couple with similar works by Fontana, some originally for violin as well as some conceived for other string or wind instruments.

The violin was perhaps the most popular instrument of the 17th century. It turns up in nearly every Baroque instrumental genre, including the solo sonata, the concerto, and the immensely popular trio sonata (for two violins, often complimented by harpsichord, organ, or theorbo). Much less common, but equally compelling, are pieces for three violins with some sort of plucked or strummed accompaniment.

John Dowland’s Lachrimae Pavans is considered one of the greatest works in the canon of English chamber music. Based upon his famous song “Flow My Teares”, the seven pavans – "Seaven Teares", as Dowland called them – present an extraordinary exploration of the contrapuntal and harmonic possibilities offered by the theme. In this remarkable recording, baroque violinist John Holloway creates a concert programme around the lachrimae Pavans. Threaded between Dowland’s masterpieces are works of other major composers of his era – Henry Purcell, William Lawes, John Jenkins, Thomas Morley and Matthew Locke. In bringing together these works of strongly contrasting colour and character Holloway and company give us a vivid sense of the great flowering of consort music which took place in England in the 17th century.