Sei Solo.

Bach, having finished what is arguably his greatest masterpiece, sat down and wrote on the front page of his manuscript, “Sei Solo” which means “You are alone.” In big letters. Then he wrote, “For violin without accompaniment.” And as though that were not enough, he wrote on the next page “for violin alone without accompaniment.” There is much in this work that points to the loneliness of the human experience, yet so much of the Partitas and Sonatas are conversations, questions and the tentative offerings of answers. I am reminded of the Psalms when I play these works. Bach being a religious man must have felt his music akin to that of a prayer. Written in the aftershock of his wife’s death (during which Bach was away on tour, unknowing), Bach addresses his grief and questions about life and spirituality: his anger giving way to awe, his questions to resignation, his nostalgia to demands. As Bach reaches the cornerstone of his work, the Chaconne, we are met with a repeating 8-note bass line that feels as inevitable as the machinations of fate. It is what Bach does around this bass line that reveal his mastery not only of music but of the spiritual nature of our lives. It’s as if he is telling us that while we cannot alter time or fate, it is what we do with the two that makes the beauty of a life. 

Here is a collection of works that explore the nature of grief, God and if as humans we are ever truly alone. Every time I play this program I am struck by the voices in the music and the conversations that are made new. Two hundred years later, Eugene Ysaÿe picks up his pen to respond to Bach with his own 6 Solo Violin Sonatas (dedicating his 4th Sonata in E Minor to his dear friend, Fritz Kreisler). And Mozart, reeling from the shock and guilt of his mother’s death, writes his E Minor Piano and Violin Sonata, the only one in the collection in a minor key. Simultaneously he writes a letter to his pastor, asking for counsel in telling his father of his mother’s passing. The chorales and religious music of Bach were undoubtedly an influence in this tumultuous time as Mozart inserts a chorale in the second movement as the centerpiece of his work. Jessie Montgomery gives us a masterclass in the the power of a single voice against evil: one theme struggling to be heard amid the chaos of doubt and violence, a theme that emerges quietly triumphant and beautiful at the end. And Kreisler, in response to Ysaÿe, dedicates his Recitativo and Scherzo to Ysaÿe, his only solo work.