James Ehnes: Bach

 The Strad Issue: April 2025

Description: A complete Bach traversal proves something of a mixed bag

Musicians: James Ehnes, Yosuke Kawasaki, Jessica Linnebach (violin) Charles Hamann (oboe) Joanna G’froerer (flute), Luc Beauséjour (harpsichord) Orchestra of the National Arts Centre, Canada

Works: Bach: Violin Concertos: in E major BWV1042, A minor BWV1041, D minor BWV1052R, G minor BWV1056R; Concerto in D minor for two violins BWV1043; Concerto in D major for three violins BWV1064R; Concerto in A minor for flute, violin and harpsichord BWV1044; Concerto in C minor for oboe and violin BWV1060R

Catalogue number: ANALEKTA 288934 (2 CDs)

Bach’s violin concertos, comprising works with extant autograph sources and adapted compositions believed to have originated as concertos for the instrument, are presented here in clear, generally well-balanced recordings captured over three days. However, James Ehnes’s accounts of the solo concertos fail consistently to convince. Adopting a modern performing approach, his reading of BWV1042 is accurate and precise but smacks somewhat of routine. The opening Allegros of BWV1052R and BWV1041 fare similarly; but the florid solo cantilenas of these works’ and 1056R’s centrepieces, which showcase Ehnes’s sonorous ‘Marsick’ Stradivari of 1715 across most of its range, are particularly expressively rendered; and their brisk, energetic finales are exhilarating.

In the double and triple concertos, Ehnes and his partners alternate as principal voice in the texture or engage in canonic imitation. BWV1060R features beautiful oboe playing by Charles Hamann, with whose seamless phrasing Ehnes strikingly interacts in the lyrically intense Adagio. Yosuke Kawasaki, too, proves an admirable ally in BWV1043: their outer movements are powerful and vivacious and they interweave with lyrical intensity in the soulful Largo.

Jessica Linnebach joins Ehnes and Kawasaki as soloist in BWV1064R in an account most remarkable for its finale, in which each takes a turn at bravura display. Ehnes’s dramatic improvisatory cadenza eventually concludes the interplay. The least memorable performance is that of BWV1044, its outer movements feeling laboured. That said, the eloquent traversal of its central movement is a redeeming factor, along with Luc Beauséjour’s harpsichord cadenza before the finale’s closing ritornello, dispatched with commendable aplomb. The well-drilled orchestra gives sterling support throughout.

ROBIN STOWELL