Baroque Violin Par Excellence

Violinist John Holloway is responsible for this wonderful disk, the centrepiece of which is Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's Unarum Fidium. A work for solo violin, it is in the form of six sonatas and is elegiac, meditative, serene and improvisatory. It has virtuoso aspects in common with the Italian violinist - composers of the 17th century and it sets the scene for the later arrival of Biber. For this recording, Holloway has experimented with the addition of a basso continuo sound which has harpsichord and organ played simultaneously by two players who each realise the figured bass to the full capability of their instruments. The organ part is played here by Aloysia Assenbaum, while longtime Holloway musical partner Lars Ulrik Mortensen takes the harpsichord part. The Schmelzer work is bookended by two complementary pieces. Opening the disk is a Chiacona for solo violin by Antonio Bertali, an brilliantly exuberant dance piece with dazzling playing from Holloway and the extremely odd device of a pop music style fade at the end; Manfred Eicher's idea maybe, the disk is given a distinctively reverberant ECM recording. The disk closes with an anonymous piece in sonata form for Scordatura Violin and Basso Continuo that is unattributed but may well be by Biber. A superb disk all round.