Classical Music: Bach Partitas & Sonatas

Imagery is everything. Take the picture that the Delphian team has chosen for the cover of Croatian-born baroque violin specialist Bojan Čičić’s new release; it excellently sets the scene before a note has been played.

Despite not being a photo from Delphian’s fifteenth-century Scottish venue, Crichton Collegiate Church, Midlothian, it nevertheless invites the listener to ponder what will be heard, inviting them into a fabulous acoustic to listen to hauntingly beautiful and accomplished unaccompanied Bach.

This is not just yet another recording of the Partitas; it is the recording.

If the imagery on the cover is a visualisation by sight, the imaginings that the music conjures as it encircles the space within which you are listening are powerful, as Mahan Estafani alludes to in his superb notes. What you are hearing is mastery on four strings created by Bach and executed to perfection with consummate playing from a player whose infectious, unassuming musicianship is laced with a finesse that makes each note communicate an ethereal and sensory presence.

There is a warmth to the playing that envelops the listener, creating an atmosphere where we are more than eavesdroppers on the performances; we are part of something special.

Čičić is a skilled interpreter and uses his baroque violin to great effect, especially contrasting the soundscape and paying attention to the technical demands and the details. The lines are perfected, and everything, from the double-stopped playing to the gut strings and range of colour, seeps out of the speakers.

By the end, the imagery will have touched you.

Captivating and utter bliss.