United Kingdom Bach, Ysaÿe, Franck – ‘Bach and Beyond’: Chloё Hanslip (violin), Danny Driver (piano). Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton, 21.3.2025. (CK)
Bach – Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard in B minor, BWV 1014 and F minor, BWV1018; Partita in E for violin, BWV 1006 (original and transcribed for piano)
Eugène Ysaÿe – Sonata in A minor for solo violin, Op.27 No.2, ‘Obsession’
Franck – Violin Sonata in A
In 2017 Chloё Hanslip and Danny Driver completed a cycle of Beethoven’s violin sonatas at the Turner Sims: I missed them (I was living in Orkney at the time), but the warmth of the two artists’ reception made it abundantly clear that this concert marked the return of old friends.
In ‘Bach and Beyond’ – the first of three concerts with this title (the others follow in June and November) – Hanslip and Driver have devised a shapely and fascinating sequence of works exploring all kinds of connections between the three featured composers. Pre-eminently, of course, Bach, three of whose works comprised the concert’s first half: two of the Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard, framing the E major Partita for solo violin (a misnomer on this occasion, as we shall see).
Bach composed his six violin and keyboard sonatas during his years at Cöthen, where we have his patron’s lack of interest in religious music to thank for the Brandenburg Concertos, the Cello Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin amongst other jewels of Baroque instrumental music. Hanslip and Driver played the first, in B minor, and the fifth, in F minor: I think it is fair to say that they exploited all the lyrical and dramatic possibilities of modern instruments (a piano rather than a harpsichord) without traducing the music’s character.
Both sonatas begin with an Adagio. In the B minor a musing piano was joined almost imperceptibly by the violin; their conversation was graceful and full of feeling. The first Allegro was lively and expressive, with plenty of light and shade, and a lovely fluidity – it was like listening to two rivulets flowing close together. The music continued to flow gracefully in the Andante, and in the closing Allegro – taken at quite a lick – it sparkled merrily. The F minor Sonata’s opening Adagio was equally lovely, Hanslip building tension in her handling of the theme; Driver’s left hand cleanly pointed the fugal writing in the exhilarating Allegro and kept up a gentle arpeggio motion in the second Adagio beneath Hanslip’s beautifully meditative violin – a very Romantic sound – before the dance-like Vivace.
Now for the middle of this Bach sandwich: the E major Partita, in what Driver wryly suggested might be a world premiere version. The Preludio was played by Hanslip unaccompanied – a seething torrent of sound – but the remaining five movements were played in arrangements for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler and others. Driver’s piano kept up a euphonious moto perpetuo beneath Hanslip’s violin in Kreisler’s version of the Loure before hijacking the well-known Gavotte en Rondeaux completely in an arrangement by Robert Schumann (in Florestan mode); Hanslip unobtrusively and rather wittily joined in for the final bars. The stately Minuets were served à la Kreisler before the livelier fare of the Bourrée and Gigue.
We were not quite done with the Bach E major Partita. Belgian composer and violin superstar Eugène Ysaÿe was inspired by Bach’s works for solo violin to write his own set of six solo sonatas. Having heard the Third, Fourth and Fifth at the Romsey Chamber Music Festival in 2023 I was looking forward to hearing Chloё Hanslip play the Second: it proved to be even more extraordinary than the others I have heard. It begins with the Bach Partita we had heard before the interval, but falters and veers into dark territory. The Dies Irae plainchant enters harshly on the G string and reappears throughout the sonata in many guises – a ghostly apparition in the second movement (Malinconia), a sinister pizzicato puppet-show in the third (Danse des Ombres) and so on. Hanslip played up the weird, schizophrenic nature of the music for all it was worth: during the last movement (Les Furies), marked Allegro furioso – a splintered, angular tour de force – there were broken bow-hairs flying around her head. The sonata’s subtitle – ‘Obsession’ – is no exaggeration.
César Franck was a composer/organist like Bach: his much-loved Violin Sonata was a wedding present to Ysaÿe, and so a fitting conclusion to this concert. Hanslip’s playing of the opening movement was beautifully phrased, with lovely half-tones; Driver excelled in the turbulent Allegro and the lamenting Recitativo; and so we reached the clear, serene light of the canonic Allegretto, played con amore, Hanslip’s violin sweet-toned, passionate and sweeping as the music required, Driver’s piano expressive (and, at the end, thunderous). I think we all felt that we had been taken on a long, varied and endlessly fascinating journey to get there.
Chris Kettle