Bach: Sei Solo

Bach’s music for solo violin is widely considered to be the finest ever written for the instrument. Completed more than 300 years ago, in 1720, it presents such technical, musical and emotional challenges that even today’s greatest players spend a lifetime perfecting it—including Greek virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos. “My highest dream was always to record the solo sonatas and partitas,” he tells Apple Music, a dream he has finally realised on Sei Solo. “Not from a career point of view, but simply to be able to arrive at the point where I felt could bring something new to it.” Kavakos still remembers the first time he fully appreciated the power of Bach’s solo violin music: In his twenties, he was given a recording of sonatas and partitas by the legendary Baroque violinist Sigiswald Kuijken. “I realised that I wasn’t focusing on the playing, but on the music. This wasn’t playing in the way I was taught—it was violin playing in the service of a style, of a time in history.” The experience affected him so much that he stopped playing Bach in public for more than ten years, spending time practising it and experimenting with authentic gut strings and different bows. “I needed to absorb everything and create an interpretation that I could be happy with,” he adds. This recording, then, is both a document of a remarkable musical journey and the story of a personal reawakening. Read on as Kavakos talks us through it in-depth. Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006 “I wanted to start with the Third Partita because the opening movement was later transcribed by Bach for the opening sinfonia of ‘Cantata BWV 29’. The cantata’s title ‘Wir danken dir, Gott’ [‘We thank you, God’] is something we say not only when we pray, but also in everyday life. For me, this was a reason to begin the recording with this partita. But it’s also a good place to start because all of its movements are of a lighter character. The prelude is incredible. The way the music moves through the movement—with