Akiko Suwanai Magnificent in Bach

It never rains but it pours. I had just finished listening to and absorbing Leonidas Kavakos in the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin by Bach, when along came another set via a download from a very good friend. I had some irritants with Kavakos's Bach; not with his violin playing but with the way he messed around with phrasing and rhythm and added some completely superfluous ornamentation. The new set in my player comes from Akiko Suwanai and it is extremely good. Akiko, too, is a top class violinist, but she is also a serious and intelligent musician.

Akiko Suwanai sprang to fame when she came first in the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1990 at the age of 18. Her performance there of Paganini's D major concerto brought thunderous applause from the audience (and from me, listening to a CD of the concert). She has always been an extremely intelligent musician. I have only heard her once in concert and that was in Washington a couple of decades ago. Very impressive in the Bartok violin concerto, with her long hair flying in all directions as she played. I have been an Akiko fan for many, many years and have a good number of recordings of her playing; none of them duds. She keeps a pretty low profile and appears to be a very private person. Would there were more like her.

My Beckmesser slate is completely unmarked, even after 31 movements of the sei solo. Quite an achievement in these over-familiar works. The andante of the second sonata is played as sweetly and effortlessly as Heifetz in his recording, and Akiko's bowing dexterity in the final allegro is a joy to listen to. The ciaccona of the second partita is an object lesson in skill in bowing and dynamics. At 50 years old, Akiko has lost none of her technical flair. The largo of the third sonata – like all the slower movements in this set – is played with real skill and affection, and the following allegro assai really is assai; the girl must have a magic bow, and probably even Heifetz's jaw would have dropped.

The sound is excellent, and her del Gesù violin has a recorded warmth that I missed in the Kavakos set. Akiko was recorded in a Dutch church in July of 2021; considering that by the time I listened to the set the tracks had been compressed to FLAC, sent over the Net, decompressed by me and then written to CD, I have no niggles whatsoever. Modern technology can be impressive, at times (unlike modern politicians). Is this set the best of the bunch? Unlikely, given the varied competition. But asked to nominate just one set of the sei solo to take to my desert island, it would probably be this set from Akiko Suwanai. Bravo. Even after over 30 years since the Moscow competition, she is technically superb but, more importantly and rarer, an intelligent and sensitive musician.