The program offered here by violinist Ilya Gringolts, on his first album to feature contemporary music, is one of those that builds toward its central idea, which is presented at the end. He plays contemporary works for violin solo inspired by the idea of the Chaconne, the Baroque variation form based on a short repeated bass pattern. The last of these works, Brice Pauset's Kontrapartita, is a kind of dialogue with Bach's partitas for solo violin, atomizing and recombining their music. The king of all the Chaconnes is that ...
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The program offered here by violinist Ilya Gringolts, on his first album to feature contemporary music, is one of those that builds toward its central idea, which is presented at the end. He plays contemporary works for violin solo inspired by the idea of the Chaconne, the Baroque variation form based on a short repeated bass pattern. The last of these works, Brice Pauset's Kontrapartita, is a kind of dialogue with Bach's partitas for solo violin, atomizing and recombining their music. The king of all the Chaconnes is that from the Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004, and Gringolts ends with that. One unusual decision he makes is to intersperse the Bach pieces that inspired Pauset among the movements of Pauset's work; another is to place Pauset's movements before rather than after the Bach movements; and a third, quite intriguing, is to push the Bach pieces toward a contemporary sound (although Gringolts uses a violin with some aspects of a Baroque configuration). The Bach is played fast...
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