I took a chance and purchased a cd by Giora Schmidt a couple days ago.  I hadn’t heard of this violinist but I just love the cd!    It is Giora on violin with Rohan De Silva on piano with a selection of music including Vivaldi’s sonata in a major, Manuel De Falla Suite Populaire Espagnole, Philip Lasser’s Vocalise, Cesar Franck’s Sonata in A Major and Henryk Wienawski’s Polonaise Brillante3.   Looking for some info on Giora I see quites such as “Perlman in his Prime” and “one of the most commanding …

The Chaconne is definitely a journey and you feel it from the outset… And then Bach manages to take you through the entire range of human emotion… -Joshua Bell
Michael Lawrence’s new film which explores Bach from a spiritual, intellectual point of view as well as from the perspective of instruments and performance includes interviews with violinist Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn and many others.  The project is now in post production and looks like it will be a beautifully shot and very interesting documentary.  Watch a preview and Joshua Bell playing …

With the intention of writing on post primarily about Rachel Barton Pine’s podcast and blog I visited her website and instead of collecting my thoughts on what to write I was instead transfixed by the recording which began to play of her tribute to Maud Powell. She plays so beautifully!  I am sure I will post more about her in the future, but this post is primarily about her podcast and blog.  But she plays so beautifully!

This two disk set of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin presents an wonderful interpretation of the music using a Baroque style instrument and gut strings.  John Holloway is a pioneer of the early music movement which seeks to reproduce early music in the manner it was originally intended and heard.  Holloway approaches Bach’s masterpiece from a perspective of the music that came before in contrast to many twentieth century violinists who approach these works with a perspective of what came after.
Check out the authentically Baroque Sonatas and Partitas …