Musical find of a generation | Bach: Inventions & Partita | Johann Sebastian Bach, Janine Jansen, ... ...

Timeless and Asymptotic to Perfection | Bach: Inventions & Partita | Johann Sebastian Bach, Janine Jansen, ...

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	• Bach: Inventions & Partita Johann Sebastian Bach, Janine Jansen, ... Decca, 2007 average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Janine Great, but I have a problem with the pieces.

As usual Janine Jansen plays wonderful. Tim Swensen has written about it very knowledgeable (see his review). I won't repeat.

However, I do have a problem with the repertoire: the CD contains 35 (!) tracks. Of almost all of them the length is only 1 - 2 minutes. Before you get into any piece it is over again. And this goes on and on. Tiring!

Why, with the transcription, didn't Janine add a couple of repeats? A couple less tracks (or two CD's), but it would make a more interesting CD. I do think the music is beautiful, but at the moment it is like a restaurant where you only get one spoonful of each course. Bedore you have time to taste it, you get another spoonful with another taste.

Of course the exception is the Partita in D, BWV 1004 [Here the length of the tracks is 4 minutes or more]. I hope she'll once play all of them!

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Musical find of a generation

I've done comparison listens to the 2nd Partita between Jansen and numerous other violinists (Grumiaux, Menuhin, Szeryng, Steinhardt, Hahn, Fischer, Van Dael, Podger, St. John), and compared to Jansen, they all sound humorless and earth bound. Jansen is like a bird who can follow the music wherever it goes, from the earth to the tree tops to the mountains to the sea shore. She is able to find the "animal" within in each rhythmic structure and bring the full creature into view. The Partitas are, remember, dance collections, and Jansen seems to return to this essential fact. For most musicians, listening to them is like looking at the brush strokes of a painting. With Jansen, it is like being actually transported into the scene she is painting and gazing all around it. I can think of few musicians with this precious ability --- Toscanini comes first to mind. I hope she will record the Sonatas and the rest of the Partitas, and release them on SACD so that our living rooms may become the Bach dream she is painting.

The Inventions, which make up the bulk of this album, don't rise to the heights of Jansen's Partita for me, but are quite spirited and enjoyable. I could use more "impishness" in the playing for these particular pieces (Perlman's Beethoven op. 47 here comes to mind!), more dramatic contrast, but hey, they sound good. These are Jansen's own string transcriptions of the pieces Bach wrote for his son's piano practice. In this way they are unique contributions to the repertoire.

By the way, you here Jansen playing the "Barrere" Stradivarius of 1727, Rysanov playing a Guadagnini 1780 viola, and Thedeen playing a Tecchler 1811 cello.

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Timeless and Asymptotic to Perfection

Janine Jansen's performance of Bach's "Inventions and Partita" is both fantastic and timeless. For listeners of all types -- from those new to this style of music to those with great experience with these particular pieces -- this recording is one to own.

Jansen imbues these classic pieces -- entitled "Two-part Inventions and Three-part Sinfonias," but often referred to as "Inventions," and originally written for keyboard for Bach's students as exercises to prepare them for more complex pieces -- with personality and depth of character.

One of the pieces on this performance, known as "Chaconne," was described by Joshua Bell (an internationally heralded musician) in this manner: "...not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It's a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect." (Source: Washington Post, Sunday, April 8, 2007; W10)

As Jansen notes in a booklet for these pieces, "You just have to listen, open your ears and find a way...the most important thing in music is that it touches you." Readers of this review are advised to listen and open your ears to this timeless performance.

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Unique in Sound and Repretoire

Here're are the must haves for any Baroque violin fan: Perlman playing Bach's Sonata&Partilas, Manze playing Bach violin conerti, and Manze playing Tartini sonatas. Then you got to have this one. I thought the trascription was nicely done. The playing was appropriate. Yes, the inventions are rather short and it is annoying if you just sit there and listen to the CD. If you listen while reading or cooking, it didn't bother me.

Unforfunately the best part of the CD was her solo. The Chaconne was just amazing. Her treatment of the counterpoint was obvious. Her intensity increased as the piece carried on. Perlman's Chaconne was grand. Hilary Hahn's Chaconne was smooth. Janssen's Chaconne was personable. This Chaconne left me speechless and stunned. When this piece ended, I senses stopped to feel. I had no clue when my emotions were completely taken over by her playing. I have not felt like this since I listened to Yundi Li playing Liszt's transcription of La Campenella; another great example where the music took over my senses.

I had to take away a star because the rest of the CD wasn't as amazing as her own solo. Nonetheless, this is still a "must-have" for any baroque violin fan.

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Finest violinist in the land...

I should provide the disclaimer that I am an unabashed Janine Jansen fan. But, I am certainly not alone. This rendition of the Bach Inventions and Partitas adapted for violin and strings is a revelation. Jansen is, in my opinion the finest violinist performing on the concert stage today. No one I have heard can match her energy and her abandon combined with her prodigious talent. While Bach doesn't offer the opportunity for "abandon" that Mendelssohn does (see my other review on her last CD, which I highly recommend), her interpretation of Bach here is lively and fresh. I love Bach and I feel, as many people do, that most recently, Hilary Hahn has offered a wonderful, "pure" interpretation of her own. But while Hahn clearly has a feel for Bach, Jansen has a feel for expressive violin that makes virtually everything she does unique and often inspired. Her Bach is lively and original yet maintains the tempo and dynamics you would expect. I loved it. I play the CD all of the time. I am not representing myself as an expert on classical music, but I do love to listen to classical CD's and I feel that this one is yet another Janine Jansen masterpiece. If you like and appreciate Janine Jansen, you will certainly not be disappointed with this CD. If you love Bach, again, Jansen's Bach is different but refreshing and original.

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Fresh from a triumphant concerto recording featuring Mendelssohn and Bruch, the pillars of the Romantic violin repertoire, Janine Jansen reverts to the roots of violin playing, and the music of Bach. On her latest recording, Janine performs Bach's beloved two and three part inventions specially transcribed for violin, viola and cello. She brings a characteristically fresh approach to the popular repertoire, with a unique survey of the musical voices of Bach. Janine herself takes center stage for a luminous performance of Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin. Violist Maxim Rysanov joins her for Two-Part Inventions BWV 772a-788 and cellist Torleif Thedeen adds a third voice for Three-Part Inventions BWV 787-801.

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