Tuesday, March 7, 2023
7:30 PM
In a special two-part lecture-concert presentation, Baroque violinist and scholar Victoria Martino will perform J.S. Bach's Six Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin, and discuss both the form and content of these seminal works in the context of the composer's life and legacy. This lecture-concert series is a unique opportunity to hear these celebrated compositions performed on an original period instrument from Bach's time, using a facsimile of the autograph manuscript.
Bach's unaccompanied sonatas and partitas are considered by most violinists to be the most challenging compositions in the entire repertoire. Their dazzling virtuosity and haunting beauty have enthralled audiences for over three centuries. These remarkable works, composed in 1720, represent the apotheosis of violin literature, due to their daunting musical and technical demands. Hearing them in concert, one can scarcely believe that such rich harmonic complexity and profound emotional depth can be evoked by a single melodic instrument. Thematic, rhythmic, spatial, timbral, and tonal textures are conveyed within a panoply of musical forms, ranging from dramatic preludes and polyphonic fugues to lively dance suites. None other than the great Johannes Brahms wrote of Bach's majestic and monumental Chaconne (the crown and centerpiece of the entire cycle), "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."
About Victoria Martino:
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and the University of California, Victoria Martino studied Baroque violin and early music performance practice with the legendary Robert Koff in Boston (Brandeis University, Harvard University). She has been performing internationally as a Baroque soloist and chamber musician, with early music ensembles, since 1989.
Ms. Martino has collaborated and played recitals with many notable figures in the early music world, including Eduard Melkus, Huguette Dreyfus, Paul Badura Skoda, David Bellugi, and Robert Barto. For over a decade, she toured internationally with her own ensemble, the Albertina Soloists, giving concerts throughout Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan. Her extensive early music orchestral experience includes: associate concertmaster of Capella Academica Wien for nearly ten years, and principal second violin of the Wiesbaden Bach Orchestra, the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra (now Musica Angelica).
In addition to performing the standard solo repertoire for Baroque violin, including the complete works of Bach, Corelli, Handel, Tartini, and Telemann, Ms. Martino has re-discovered and presented many unpublished compositions from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. She is passionately committed to the revival of works that have never been heard by modern audiences. Whenever possible, she performs all early music from a facsimile of the autograph manuscript, in order to be completely faithful to the composer's intentions. She plays an original, unmodified Baroque violin by Michael Andreas Bartl (Vienna, 1760).
This lecture-concert presentation is partially underwritten by Bob and Catherine Palmer.
The concerts will be in person at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library. There are no physical tickets for these events. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Seating is first-come; first-served. These events will be presented in compliance with State of California and County of San Diego health regulations as applicable at the time of each concert.
Masks optional. If you have a fever, cough, or flu-like symptoms, please stay home.