Ning Feng plays Bach

Looking at a facsimile of the original scores of Bach's six sonatas and partitas for solo violin, one notices immediately a) the density of the notes and the part-writing and b) the complete absence of any performance indications, apart from tempo markings at the start of movements such as the fugues where the basic tempo is not obvious (for example, adagio, allegro, or grave). For the sarabandes, gavottes and rondos, no tempo markings are deemed necessary. There is a complete absence of piano, forte, crescendo, diminuendo, and other such performance directions.

Some, of course, have taken this to mean that Bach conceived of the music being played dead-pan, as on a sewing machine, or mechanical typewriter. Musicologists and academics have frowned at anyone making an “unauthorised” ritardando, or staccato, or pianissimo. Not so Ning Feng, whose recent recording of the six I kept to hand rather than file away. For musicologists, this will be self-indulgent Bach with no sense of “18^th century style”, whatever that may have been, and leaving aside the question as to whether a 21^st century style increases the power and interest of the music. Were Bach to hand, he could give us his opinion. I suspect he would much prefer Ning Feng on his 1721 Stradivari, compared with old Hans Nothman on his Leipzig fiddle soon after 1720 when the unaccompanied works first saw the light of day.

The first partita has no real technical difficulties (even I could play it, in my day, although the Flight of the Bumble Bee speeds in some of the doubles as played by Ning Feng or Jascha Heifetz are beyond most mortals). The ten movements (five movements, plus five doubles) can seem to go on forever, with no great musical interest; the interest has to be in the violin playing, with subtle variations of tempo and dynamics. From recollection, first-rate violinists as varied as Lisa Batiashvili, Yehudi Menuhin, Johanna Martzy, and Alfredo Campoli gave dead-pan, routine playing. The great Russians such as Oistrakh and Kogan mainly avoided unaccompanied Bach. Mr Feng holds my interest well, through the violin playing rather than just the music. He has a wonderful sense of light and shade, piano and forte; the playing in the double presto of the first partita, or the famous andante of the second sonata, is quite breathtaking. He is an expert at phrasing, at establishing a line in the music, and of voicing in the fugues. The Ciaccona comes over really well, with expert chording and dead-on-target double stops (though I still prefer Alina Ibragimova's way of ending the Ciaccona piano, rather than forte, although she is pretty well alone in this).

Ning Feng's teachers include Antje Weithaas, a violinist I admire greatly and whose playing of the unaccompanied music of Bach and Ysaÿe I recently so enjoyed. Although I do not know the Weithaas recordings intimately, I fancy I can hear a strong influence from her in Feng's playing on this Bach set, especially in the use of varied dynamics. I was somewhat surprised that a 36 year old Chinese virtuoso could woo me so completely with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, but Bach playing is seemingly independent of sex, race, or age. The two CDs constitute a two and a half hour celebration of the sound of the violin, and I enjoyed every minute of it. It's a nice touch that just as Bach was finishing his unaccompanied sonatas and partitas, Antonio Stradivari was putting the final touches to Ning Feng's violin on the other side of the Alps.