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Rachel's Musical Adventures: I'm on the Billboard charts!, new season announced, Bach reviews

July 13, 2007 at 2:58 AM

My new CD is on the Billboard chart!

My most recent album, “American Virtuosa: Tribute to Maud Powell” has just debuted on the Billboard Classical Chart at #12. This is my first time on the Billboard chart. You can see the whole list here.

By the way, American Virtuosa is my 12th CD, it’s #12 on the charts, and today is July 12!

New Season Announced

My complete concert dates for the 2007-2008 season are now posted at www.rachelbartonpine.com/tourdates.php.

My international performances will include the Gottingen Symphony in Germany, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, a tour with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, a recital for the National University of Singapore Cultural Center, and a trip to Ghana to teach, perform, and study traditional music. My U.S. orchestral engagements will include the Santa Fe, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Jacksonville, Fox Valley, Youngstown, Northwest Indiana, Greenville and Columbus (GA) Symphonies and the Dayton Philharmonic. My concerto repertoire will include those by contemporary composers Roque Cordero and John Corigliano, the Joachim “Hungarian” concerto, and Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Saint-Saens and Tchaikovsky. My chamber music performances in New York will include Bargemusic, Performers of Westchester, and guest appearances with the Jupiter Players, and I will also give a select number of recitals with Matthew Hagle, my longtime piano collaborator.

REVIEWS: Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas in Montreal, May 16, 2007

Le Devoir (Montreal)
May 17, 2007
“Classical Concert - Larger than Life”
By Christophe Huss

I remember, as if it was yesterday, the shock of my encounter with Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. It was almost exactly 30 years ago, at the Strasburg Festival. Itzhak Perlman, then the undeniable star of the young generation, played the Second Sonata and the Second and Third Partitas. Focus and tension in search of perfection and clarity were so conspicuous that we would not have dared ask for more. Yesterday, Rachel Barton Pine did it again. Exploit, madness…
There are two principal ways of playing Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. The first one, apollonian and detached, aims to a timeless violinistic beauty. In the second one, movement and phrasing dominate. Among the most recent famous performers, James Ehnes and Julia Fischer adopt the first way; Gidon Kremer, Viktoria Mullova and Ilya Gringolts adopt the second. Rachel Barton Pine also practices this more musical than violinistic manner. But she crowns this approach with an acute awareness of the baroque style and an unusual shimmering sound.

Introducing the six pieces with calm and informative remarks, adding after a more than two hours concert the most extraordinary interpretation one can imagine of the Prelude from the Second Sonata by Ysaye, performing in a church whose acoustics perfectly suit this repertoire, Rachel Barton Pine went straight to the heart of the violin and to the heart of the music.

Thanks to her fabulous bowing technique and use of a baroque bow (but metallic strings for more power in reserve), the American violinist went through the six pieces in a refined manner, without any concession in expression or pride, with humility, simplicity and a surpassing sense of rhythm and pulsation. As with Mullova, she plays the Ciacona of the Second Partita in the same tempo, instead of expressing different romantic moods.

The sense of the sound continuum, the energy, the crescendos, the alternating shade and light gave us magical moments, like the Giga of the Second Partita or the last Allegro in the Third Sonata. But it would be too artificial to isolate moments of a larger than life musical performance, a performance that was extraordinary in the full meaning of the word.

La Presse (Montreal)
May 18, 2007
“The Marvelous Bach of Rachel Barton Pine”
By Claude Gingras

On paper, the program “inspired by” Jean de La Fontaine delivered by “Les Idées Heureuses” at Pollack Hall was the most original of the four concerts listed on Wednesday night’s calendar…

Thirty minutes of that and I rush towards Bach and Barton. I arrive during the intermission. The Second Partita – which includes the famous Ciacona – the Third Sonata and the Third Partita remain to be performed.

Paganini’s 24 Caprices, as interpreted last year by the American violinist, had left imperishable memories. … the heroic young woman shows a strength of character, a consciousness, I would even say a joy in life that we could all use as a role model.

Rachel Barton Pine introduces each work with brilliant and humorous remarks. With her baroque bow and 1742 Guarnerius del Gesu, she plays Bach by heart, goes through every repeat without exception, forever capturing our attention thanks to a miraculous gathering of all the qualities one can dream of: musicality, violin mastery, variety and richness of sound, continuity of thought and vigour…and, above all, humility. We are swept miles away from the violin players (joueuses de violon) whom we see undressed on the CD cases!

The style is “romantic,” but without the extremes associated to the genre. The tempos never linger, and the added nuances are restrained. The violinist even gives an encore: a movement of the Second Sonata by Ysaye, once again humorously introduced. Rachel Barton Pine will return – perhaps with the six Ysaye Sonatas. Let’s hope so!

REVIEW: Paganini’s 24 Caprices in Montreal, June 26, 2006

This review is from last year, but I just had it translated!

Le Devoir (Montreal)
June 27, 2006
“A Really Diabolical Evening”
By Christophe Huss

We knew from her CDs, notably those devoted to Brahms and to Bruch, that Rachel Barton Pine was an excellent violinist. But, having never seen her perform live, I did not know just how special she is…

It was during the 4th Caprice that I understood what was happening: nothing, absolutely nothing, could distract this tightrope walker of a violinist, who not only deals with the tightrope but scoffs at it to grab the stars. With these works, especially when a violinist plays all the 24 Caprices in one evening, the listener usually becomes an “aural voyeur” who more or less consciously waits for a mistake. Not so last night!

What is most admirable is that Rachel Barton Pine doesn’t make her virtuosity the central focus of her interpretation. It is the sound—sumptuous, rich, and nourished by her Guarnerius del Gesù that once belonged to Brahms—that is the major subject of interest… Rachel Barton Pine brings out rare and precious sounds from her violin.

From the mandolinesque effects of the 6th Caprice, of which the final fade towards silence was a striking moment, to the Quasi Presto tempo of the 24th Caprice, through the low sounds of the 14th, the power and vivacity of the 16th, the weight of the perfect bowing of the 12th and 17th (most notably), Rachel Barton Pine displayed a full spectrum of effects and emotions. I also admired her extraordinary rhythmic grasp all through the pieces, since it is so common to see violinists rushing while playing these pieces.

Montreal should have offered a full to capacity church to this grande dame of the violin, who gave us yesterday one of the greatest recitals of the year.

That is so awesome, congratulations!!! Twelve actually happens to be my favorite number.
Congratulations!
Yay, congratulations on hitting the Billboard chart! Our local public radio station was actually giving away a copy of this CD last week and I signed up for the drawing. I didn't win it, but I heard so many beautiful tracks from it, I may just have to buy it now. :)
Congratulations on the first time on the charts! Kegger!

Laurie, look at #1 and #4 on the classical chart. It's Sting! Music of John Dowland, or something. I wonder what that's about.

Congratulations!
Jim, Sting made a very beautiful recording of songs by John Dowland. He plays megalute or doublelute or something very complex which was built just for him, and he sings. It's a fantastic CD. I especially like his intricate playing of his lute.
That's very intere-sting. I'll try to hear some of it. Other fascinating info there is soprano Anna Netrebko who peaked at #3 was a janitor.
Very cool, Rachel! A hearty congrats.

And I do dig Sting. I did the cursory I-Tunes check on this Dowland business (Rachel, sorry to go on about Sting on your blog, but, well, we tend to go on tangents here on V.com...), and wow, it's really different. Even a bit disconcerting. I'm downloading it immediately. :)

I listened to all of the amazon clips on one of the Sting cds and I hate it!! I'm willing to accept a different kind of sound than usual, and even hope to, but I can't get past how amateurish the voice sounds compared to the usual Dowland. It voice doesn't have the resonance and clarity steadyness and everything else-ness I'm used to hearing in this. But, it might be more authentic. But maybe inauthentic is better :) I think maybe it could have been great with some training, and awareness of the history of it. It seemed like that was missing, along with what he was going to be compared to. It's #1 only because Police fans want it.
Thanks for the congrats everyone. Regarding Sting, we can optimistically hope that new listeners will discover Dowland and then check out someone like Paul O'Dette. Interestingly, I was at the Boston Early Music Festival a few weeks ago, and they told me that they had invited Sting to perform (the PR for them would have been great, needless to say). But they said his fee was astronomically out of the normal range. It's too bad - you'd think he would think it was cool to perform at the most prestigious early music festival in the U.S. and reduce his rock star sized fee just that once. I wonder, does he actually go around performing Dowland stuff, or did he just record it and that's it?
I wonder how lute players feel - there's probably some discussion group somewhere. Remember Michael Bolton's opera arias? What if some random pop artist decided to record the Beethoven Violin Sonatas? Would we all be happy that this repertoire had gained visibility, or would we all be groaning?
I don't know how popular Dowland needs to be, but hopefully it's got some imformative liner notes. Not appearing at the festival for free, not just reducing his fee, says something. Not sure what.

The most interesting thing in this is what Dowland apparently requires performance-wise, and I wonder why that is. Sting sounds fine on pop songs. I think we're so conditioned to hearing this done a particular way that anything else sounds wrong. The reverse is just as true. We don't want to hear a classical tenor singing Police unless he makes adjustments of his own.

I can see how it could have sounded right, but still like Sting, with just a little more attention. Re: the lute, there's another lutenist on the album too, wasn't sure who was who.

I mean I wouldn't have thought there was such a difference in requirements for Dowland and pop songs. Maybe other pop singers would be more suited without changing anything. One reviewer called it "tight-jawed and heavy-chested" which is how it sounded to me. Also I sensed sometimes he didn't know what to do, or didn't trust himself to do what came naturally. Strange stuff :)
I really appreciate your blogging here, and teaching us about Maud Powell. I listened to your podcast and put the CD on my Amazon wish list (which is basically like ordering it). I always thought twelve was a lucky number too.

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Discover the best of Violinist.com in these collections of editor Laurie Niles' exclusive interviews.

Violinist.com Interviews Volume 1, with introduction by Hilary Hahn

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