In her recital at Ravinia’s Martin Hall Monday, Miriam Fried earned possibly the solidest set of credentials open to a violinist: She played three of Bach’s six mighty works for unaccompanied violin, and played them beautifully.
About the only way to improve on that record is to play all six, and she will soon take care of that: Fried is to perform the other three on July 6. Why have these pieces always been held in such awe, especially by violinists? They are immensely demanding, and a unique concentrate of music. Not only is each a complete work, but each part and subsection has a personality of its own, goes its own way. The Romanian-born Fried, now faculty chairman of Ravinia’s Steans Institute, has all the technique needed to make her playing seem as effortless as conversation. Her artistry shows in the way she shapes phrases and lets them move in the direction they seem to want.
It showed immediately in the opening Partita No. 3 in E Major. The repeated phrases in the “Preludio” were never exactly the same; if one was strong and assertive, its mate was a gentle echo. Always there was a sense of change, of direction and purpose.
The “Gavotte” with its famous bouncy tune has been transcribed in all sorts of ways (by Rachmaninoff, among others), but in any version it must be played with respect for its musicality. That is the essential quality that Fried gave to it and in fact to everything she played.
It may be hard to imagine how a composer writes harmony for an unaccompanied instrument, but Bach does it all the time. Chords are always there; they are implied in the melody itself or stretched out into a torrent of single notes, with here and there a melody note peeping through the flow. In the Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, Fried gave the opening movement–marked “Grave,” or extremely slow–a more than skin-deep beauty of sound. The quick-moving Fugue showed another element in her virtuosity: every note seemed dead-center on pitch. The final Allegro was lithe and springy.
The Partita No. 2 in D Minor packs the greatest power, and in the most unexpected way. There are four dance movements–all pleasant and masterly crafted. Then comes the Chaconne, surely the most awe-inspiring work for solo violin ever written. It’s like strolling through a suburban garden and suddenly coming upon Pike’s Peak.
Fried gave it an emotional, even romantic tinge, caressing some phrases with more than a hint of rubato. It was warm, living music. Violin players and aficionados should keep July 6 in mind; there’s more coming.
