Milstein Bach

Nathan Mironovich Milstein (January 13, 1904 [O.S. December 31, 1903] – December 21, 1992) was a Russian Empire-born American virtuoso violinist.Widely considered one of the finest violinists of the 20th century, Milstein was known for his interpretations of Bach's solo violin works and for works from the Romantic period. He was also known for his long career: he performed at a high level into his mid 80s, retiring only after suffering a broken hand.

With The All-Baroque Box we realize one of our fondest dreams: harnessing the deep catalogue of Archiv Produktion (supplemented on occasion by Decca L oiseau lyre recordings) to create a comprehensive collection of great music from Monteverdi to Bach. The music ranges from huge Baroque (Missa Salisburgensis, Venetian polychoral, Charpentier Te Deum) to intimate Baroque (the Goldberg Variations, Bach cello suites, solo cantatas) overwhelming in its impact and emotional content.

Bach’s remarkable Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin are revered for their boundless inventiveness, technical ingenuity and emotional depth. With their brilliant preludes, stately dances and complex four-part fugues, the demands on the performer are enormous – from rapid scale passages, double stopping and arpeggios, to the skill and concentration required to create the illusion of separately moving and interweaving voices.

A terrific idea that almost but not quite comes off, this disc called Chaconne takes as its basis Bach's Chaconne from his D minor Partita for solo violin and adds transcriptions of the work for piano by Johannes Brahms, Ferruccio Busoni, and Rudolf Lutz, the last named the teacher of pianist Edna Stern. It nearly succeeds. Stern's playing in the transcriptions is far more than professional, but not quite up to the level of the music.

Tenenbaum is a very ardent musician whose Bach is irresistibly expressive, overwhelmingly passionate, and unreservedly loving. Tenenbaum has known the Sonatas & Partitas since she was a child and her interpretations are the results of her long and profound intimacy with the music. As in a great marriage, Tenenbaum knows everything there is to know about the Sonatas & Partitas and she knows the music has depths that reveal themselves only when the player surrenders to them.