No 21 Sonatas and Partitas I

This year’s Bachfest is also a summit meeting of the world’s best violinists. Besides Chouchane Siranossian and Isabelle Faust, Leonidas Kavakos will also be in Leipzig, where he will perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete cycle of partitas and sonatas for solo violin. These works are peppered with technical difficulties and treat the violin as a de facto polyphonic instrument. Double stops, arpeggios and fugal passages test the musician’s skills to the limit. Leonidas Kavakos has just released a new recording of these exceptional works. Of his recording, he says: »It should all resemble an experiment, not the mere realisation of an immutable masterpiece«. Like his colleague, Isabelle Faust, he will be performing Bach’s works on a precious Stradivari.