A New York Times 25 Best Classical Track Selection for 2019

Violinist Jennifer Koh’s Limitless, based on her groundbreaking recital project of the same name, bridges the modern divide between composer and instrumentalist, celebrates artistic collaboration, and revives the grand tradition of composers performing their own music. The album features world-premiere recordings of Koh-commissioned duets by a diverse roster of highly accomplished contemporary composers, which she performs with the composers themselves. Premieres include Quasim Naqvi’s The Banquet for violin and modular synthesizer, exploring a convergence between acoustic string and electronic sound worlds; Lisa Bielawa’s Sanctuary Songs for violin and voice, three settings of texts by American women poets of the 1920s; Du Yun’s give me back my fingerprints for violin and voice, representative of what The New York Times calls her “adventurously eclectic” style; and Tyshawn Sorey’s In Memoriam Muhal Richard Abrams, dedicated to Sorey’s beloved mentor, the avant-garde pianist, composer, and founding president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Limitless also offers the first recording of Nina C. Young’s Sun Propeller for violin and electronics, inspired by traditional Tuvan throat-singing; Wang Lu’s Her Latitude for violin and electronics, with a quasi-improvised piano part and electronically processed sounds of Buddhist chants and old Korean pop songs; and jazz luminary Vijay Iyer’s The Diamond for violin and piano, inspired by an early Buddhist text. The album concludes with Missy Mazzoli’s A Thousand Tongues for violin, piano, and electronics, an intense response to a line in a Stephen Crane poem; and Vespers for violin and electronics, “deliciously disorienting” (National Public Radio) with a soaring solo violin.

REVIEWS:

Koh, needless to say, is sensational throughout: responsive to each composer’s demands, and fiercely committed to making each piece sing true in collaboration with its creator. The project is a paradigm shift in thinking about composers who perform, and about representation on the concert platform; the result is a beautiful, compelling collection of intimate conversations and collective statements.

– National Sawdust

Part of Ms. Koh’s double-disc project of collaborations with composers who also perform alongside her, Du Yun: ‘Give Me Back My Fingerprints’ rises from quietly uneasy to rabid and raw, then back again. Violin lines emerge, as if from far away, to mingle with Ms. Du’s earthy, murmuring, sometimes choking voice.

– New York Times (Zachary Woolfe)

Grammy-nominated violinist Jennifer Koh and virtuoso pianist Shai Wosner play 20th century works by three remarkable Central European composers who intertwine folkloric influences with their own unmistakable originality. The album includes Leoš Janáček’s Moravian influenced Sonata for violin and piano, Béla Bartók’s impassioned Violin Sonata No. 1, and compelling miniatures by György Kurtág, including Tre Pezzi for violin and piano and selections from Signs, Games and Messages.

REVIEW:

Jennifer Koh studied with Felix Galimir at the Marlboro School and Jaime Laredo at the Curtis Institute; she won a silver medal at the 1994 International Tchaikovsky Competition (a year in which no gold was awarded) and has appeared with all the major American orchestras and many abroad. One may see her in action on YouTube, performing Paganini with the Chicago Symphony, displaying amazing aplomb and panache for an 11-year old, or for any age. She has tended to avoid the warhorses of the repertory, as her recordings—from Bach to Zorn—show.

In a brief discussion of this disc (also seen on YouTube), pianist Shai Wosner says “it’s intense music; we wanted to milk the most out of every bar.” Yet the Janá?ek performance strikes me as just the opposite: A silky violin and a gentle piano—in a warm, reverberant acoustic setting—emphasize the inherent beauty of this music rather than its intensity or its connections to folk music. Janá?ek’s spiky harmonies and jumpy, stabbing attacks are played down. Many listeners may prefer this Romantic-era approach, but it soft-pedals the composer’s essence, the character that makes him unique. For a more vibrant performance, try Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich on DG, which John Wiser nailed (Fanfare 16:4) as having “a touch of Gypsy exoticism.”

György Kurtág has written what we call full-length works, but our attention has been focused on his many sets of miniatures. Signs, Games, and Messages (also the title of this disc) and Játékok (also “Games”) are both large collections of small pieces composed over many years. Are they completed? Only the composer could answer that question. The former are for “vn, va, vc, db in various combinations, as solos, duos, trios, qts.” (The New Grove II); these four are played here by the solo violin. Játékok are for piano, some with vocal additions—momentary noises rather than song or poetry. Tre Pezzi are for violin and piano; they are played together, as a three-movement work, whereas the other pieces are more or less randomly distributed around them (at the artists’ pleasure, of course), providing instrumental variety to these 27 minutes. But this variety may disrupt the accumulated effect of a Kurtág collection: a Mode CD has 24 Signs, Games, and Messages played by violist Maurizio Barbetti, and it is stunning—perhaps it is his magnificent performance, capturing every mood, every wry twist, that makes such a difference.

Koh and Wosner are superb in Bartók’s First Sonata. She expresses the full measure of the music without ever producing a single ugly or even awkward note; he is a powerhouse as well as a subtle presence. They do “milk the music” to its fullest intensity. It is astonishing that Koh’s elegant, liquid tones can be so assertive, matching Wosner at every step. There have been so many recordings of the Bartók sonatas, seemingly half of them by Gidon Kremer, often partnered, again, by Martha Argerich. Kremer takes a lighter view of the First Sonata than Koh—I am particularly partial to his 1972 Hungaroton recording with Yury Smirnov. Kremer’s playing has more edge than Koh, in two senses: He finds a special relish in the music, at the cost of some less than silky tones. I like the result, but listeners who prefer a purely beautiful violin should snap up this Cedille disc.

FANFARE: James H. North

Hailed as an “epic traversal of solo violin repertoire” and a “monumental achievement” (Chicago Tribune), American violinist Jennifer Koh’s complete Bach & Beyond recordings, pairing J.S. Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas with 20th- and 21st-century works inspired by Bach’s groundbreaking masterpieces, are now available in a convenient, economical boxed set offering all three albums for the price of two. Bach & Beyond Part 1 features Koh’s “alluring performances” (The New York Times) of Bach’s Partitas Nos. 2 and 3, Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 2, Kaija Saariaho’s Nocturne, and the world-premiere recording of Missy Mazzoli’s Dissolve, O My Heart, commissioned for Koh by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Newark Star-Ledger cited the violinist’s “distinctive voice over a range of styles.” Toronto’s The Whole Note said of Bach & Beyond Part 2, “Koh, as always, is superb, her intelligence and interpretation always matching her outstanding technique” in Bach’s Sonata No. 1 and Partita No. 1, Bela Bartok’s Sonata for Solo Violin Sz. 117, BB 124, and Saariaho’s Frises. Koh’s Bach & Beyond Part 3 earned BBC Music Magazine’s and ClassicsToday.com’s highest ratings for performance and recording quality. The Strad admired Koh’s “eloquent, artful, yet unadorned playing” in Bach’s Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VIII, and the world-premiere recording of John Harbison’s For Violin Alone, written for Koh. AllMusic said, “Koh’s series is highly recommended to those in search of an experience that will reward repeated hearings.” Audiophile Audition called it a “remarkable three-disc effort, recommended to all with a good degree of urgency.”

Excerpts of reviews from previously released volumes included in this set:

Bach & Beyond, Part 1

Koh makes short work of the Bach pieces—not in a bad sense: she just nails these works with a confident technique and a free-flowing, un-mannered style that remains true to Bach yet reminds us that a modern violinist is at the helm. Although ostensibly “modern”, the works by Saariaho and Mazzoli still incorporate time-honored traditions of solo-violin writing and don’t stray into what some might call “experimental” territory. These are both very ingratiating and accessible works to anyone who appreciates interesting, involving, intelligently written new violin music.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

Bach & Beyond, Part 2

Koh’s Bach is amazing as usual–so fluid and delivered with such a sensitively nuanced, confident authority. A personality emerges: is it Koh? is it Bach? It’s either or both, but ultimately, who cares? This is exceptional Bach playing. Throughout, Koh is in command, from the dazzling explications of the Bartók Fuga and Presto movements, to the sometimes frighteningly audacious dynamic and timbral assertions of the Saariaho.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

American violinist Jennifer Koh’s Bach & Beyond Part 3 concludes her critically acclaimed series of recordings based on her groundbreaking, multi-season recital series of the same name that The New York Times has called “indispensable.” Koh, “a virtuoso with quirky and wonderful ideas” (San Francisco Chronicle), again pairs two of J.S. Bach’s landmark Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin with Bach-inspired 20th- and 21st-century works. On this series-finale album, Bach’s florid and fanciful Sonata No. 2 in A minor and Sonata No. 3 in C major, celebrated for its colossal Fuga movement, frame Luciano Berio’s expressive, chaconne-like Sequenza VIII and Pulitzer Prize winner John Harbison’s alluring For Violin Alone, a dance suite inspired by Bach’s partitas, written for Koh (a world-premiere recording).

REVIEW:

Jennifer Koh returns, with the third and final installment in her Bach & Beyond series. With Part 3, we have another two-disc program, framed by two Bach sonatas–No. 2 in A minor BWV 1003, and No. 3 in C major BWV 1005–and filled out by Luciano Berio’s 15-minute-plus Sequenza VIII and John Harbison’s For Violin Alone, composed in 2019 for Koh and here receiving its world-premiere recording. Koh’s Bach, as noted in my two previous reviews, is polished, passionate, and presented with requisite attention to notational detail, but also with a lived-in, well-thought-out sense of phrasing and melodic flow that arises from the score, from an understanding of the all-important harmonic underpinning–an approach practical and just a bit personal, but never with a hint of posturing.

For this series we especially appreciate how carefully and purposefully Koh has chosen her program partners. We’re not expecting direct stylistic similarity, of course–Bach joining hands with Berio and Harbison is not the point. Rather, what Koh is interested in is some manner of influence or inspiration, arising either in some indirect, complementary way from Bach (Harbison), or by means of a more symbolic, technically oriented tribute to the master’s revolutionary, matchless conceptions (Berio).

Berio’s focus is not Bach per se, but rather takes off, sets its trajectory, and develops its very specific “violinistic” gestures and effects from the well-laid platform of virtuoso solo-violin technique established by the German genius in his ground-breaking sonatas and partitas. There’s no direct reference to Bach, yet the liner notes reference Berio’s comments that this work “becomes inevitably a tribute to that musical apex that is the Ciaccona from J.S. Bach’s Partita in D minor where…past, present, and future violin techniques coexist.” Not surprisingly, this is not a sit-back-and-relax experience; it’s a sit forward and hear the not always “pretty” expressions and explorations of a modern composer putting an instrument through its paces.

Harbison’s For Violin Alone hews closer to solo-violin Bach, its six movements plus epilogue more suite than sonata, its structural elements and integral melodic and harmonic components providing the fertile material for often wide-ranging, albeit tonal, thematic exploration, single lines punctuated by pertinent double-stops that anchor the harmony. Koh is especially effective in the way she articulates these double-stop passages, notably one extended sequence at the end of “Ground”, and throughout Duet and Epilogue.

Ultimately, for me the takeaway from these programs is the ingenuity, the majesty, the audacity of Bach’s imagination and the un-improvable manner in which he realized it. Whatever comes after, by however accomplished a composer, owes a huge debt to Bach’s inimitable and totally original conceptualization and realization of the instrument’s technical and expressive capabilities. Throughout these first-rate performances, Koh takes her time, to the benefit of the music–no rushing, no gratuitous theatrics–and yet is fully capable of exploding into an energetic fury of bow and fingers that leaves you impressed with both the violin and Koh’s command of its unique voice and power.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)