 Le violon est moderne, l’archet aussi, pas de cordes en boyaux. Dans l’éclairant entretien reproduit dans le livret Esther Hoppe rappelle qu’elle a appris ses Sonates et Partitas dans les grandes versions historiques, mais son jeu est pourtant absolument informé, et d’une modestie saisissante : elle est si attentive au texte, si transparente à l’œuvre que c’est la partition que l’on croit voir autant qu’entendre. Le fini parfait de chaque trait en chasse la froideur à force de justesse expressive, l’archet est souverain dans les divisions, les polyphonies (la Chaconne de la 2e Partita est ascensionnelle, comme pénétrée de lumière, infirment fluide dans ses batteries), les évocations de la danse si nombreuses convoquent tout un imaginaire qu’on associe plus souvent aux Suites de clavier. Derrière le geste, toujours éloquent sans ostentation, toujours juste poétiquement, rayonne ce qui manque à tant d’intégrales, cette sérénité, cette spiritualité, ce sens d’une musique qui est aussi parole, qui me font placer son album inspiré au coté de ceux de Menuhin et d’Enescu. (Discophilia - Artalinna.com) (Jean-Charles Hoffelé) The Violin Sonatas and Partitas manuscript, which has fortunately survived, is dated 1720. The first page of the autograph carries the note “Libro Primo”; Bach’s Cello Suites BWV 1007-1012 may have been regarded as the “Libro Secondo”. A dedicatee is not known. Johann Sebastian Bach composed his Violin Sonatas and Partitas when he was employed as Kapellmeister in Köthen (1717-1723) and probably completed the cycle in 1720. There is hardly any other work in the entire violin literature with such significance. Bach set new standards in playing and composition; these works have lost none of their topicality and brilliance to this day. Few composers had written works for unaccompanied violin before him, and indeed not entire cycles. However, it is assumed that Bach knew, for example, Johann Paul von Westhoff’s collection of Solo Violin Suites (1696). In his compositions, Westhoff had already attempted to create the illusion of bringing polyphonic music to life through an unaccompanied melodic instrument. Bach brought this art to an unsurpassable level of perfection in his Sonatas and Partitas. The six Violin Sonatas and Partitas were already astonishingly widespread in the 18th century; many copies were produced. However, they only became widely known when the violinist Joseph Joachim, a close friend of Brahms, began to play them more frequently in the concert hall. Today, it is impossible to imagine the violin repertoire without this cycle of works.
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