May 31: Six Violin Sonatas (Monica Huggett, violin; Ton Koopman, Harpsichord)

On finding the performance that sings to you.

Sometimes I’ll hear a recording for the first time and think, “That one’s mine, I’m going to listen to it ten more times.” So it was with this 1983 recording of Bach’s Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord (BWV 1014-1019) by Monica Huggett and Ton Koopman. (YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify.)

This is what 1983 looked like. This shoot was sponsored by GE’s new Soft White Bulbs, maybe.

I’d listened to these pieces a handful of times years ago, but I never fully connected to the music. My first exposure to them was as a set of bizarre performances by Glenn Gould. Here’s a taste of Glenn with Jamie Laredo:

Glenn is all halting and spare and planky. With all the melodies and counterpoint to explore, Glenn stares down the pieces from the corner of the room smoking a pipe, wearing sunglasses and a trench coat. “What’s his angle?” as my mother in law likes to ask. Laredo tries his best to contribute, but he sounds adrift with the rest of us.

Good ol’ Glenn Gould.

Now, with unlimited access to every recording ever, I’ve discovered how these pieces should be performed: with high Germanic locomotive precision!

Our English violinist and Dutch harpsichordist keep this music driving. In most sonatas, and especially those from the 19th century, the keyboardist is the slightly-less-important accompanist to the passionate front-line violin, flute, bassoon, arpeggione, whatever. Here, Koopman is our trailblazer, and Huggett is our clear-eyed navigator. It’s fast paced, all business, but never cold.

This pair gets in a zone together and we all leap forward two centuries, almost channeling the Italian Futurists who squared chaos, beauty, and control.

Umberto Boccioni, Elasticity, 1912, painting nearly two centuries after these pieces were composed, and 70 years before this recording.

Join me in celebrating Ton and Monica and forgiving their brown outfits.

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These four excerpts give a taste of the engulfing feeling of the performances.

The concluding moments of the second movement, BWV 1017 (Love Koopman’s big thunk at 0:09):

The fourth movement of BWV 1017:

The opener of BWV 1019:

And the second movement of BWV 1018:

Koopman has a solo in the third movement of BWV 1019. What huge power he draws out of the harpsichord — it’s like his fingers are going to smash through the keys:

You can judge a violinist by the vibrato and crescendo of her opening note in the B Minor sonata, BWV 1014. Huggett eases in and lets the vibrato swing wide, really great:

Two great surprise twists into a minor mode. The first from fourth movement of BWV 1014 (at 0:09)):

The second from the opener of BWV 1015 (at 0:20):

The Adagio of the F Minor Sonata (BWV 1018) was my favorite of the collection and I’ll close with it today. The violin plays double stops throughout — this is as delicate as Huggett and Koopman get. It’s still a little bit business formal, but I love it. Here’s the full track, it’s worth it: