San Francisco Classical Voice

Opening a pleasantly varied program with Schubert's pleasantly varied A-Major Sonata (D 574 / Op. 162), Fischer quickly revealed that, with respect to dynamic control, she is one of the finest bow technicians I have ever heard. Such a meltingly flexible use of dynamics, which was so finely graded to the unfolding of each musical idea, contributed in elevating the piece above its domestic, Biedermeier-period coziness. One rarely hears such a finely detailed allegro moderato first movement, here aided and abetted by pianist Oliver Schnyder's flawless partnering. I especially admired their perfectly matched subito pianos and the difficult, understated final cadence, tossed off so effortlessly. (Imagine Fischer and Schnyder in the late Mozart sonatas.)

And while Fischer is a well-polished example of the "elegant" school of sound production, she was not entirely without a dramatic side. The furious pace of the second movement scherzo (for once, taken at a true presto) and the allegro vivace finale further enhanced the Sonata's comfortable, bouncy good-humor. Schubert, in Fischer's purview, can actually sound exciting as well.

Although I found Fischer's offerings from the late 19th century largely commendable — the Third Sonata in C Minor (Op. 45) by Grieg to close the first half, and the First Sonata in D Minor (Op. 75) of Saint-Sa”ns to close the second — it was here perhaps that Fischer and Schnyder showed some room for improvement. Certainly, I disliked their rendition of the boldly rhythmic gestures that open both works. Saint-Sa”ns' portentous opening, with an unsettling cross-rhythm presented pianissimo, was here too suavely and too easily glossed over. Likewise, the sharply etched dotted rhythm of the Grieg was pushed too hard, at such extremes of tempo and volume that its dramatic quality soon collapsed into incoherence. (Fischer's 1750 Guadagnini was particularly sensitive in the lower range to that kind of harsh treatment: any overemphatic passages on the G string had an unfortunate tendency to growl.)

But the Grieg Sonata's middle movement marked the nadir of the whole concert, in which Schnyder's schmaltzy solo of the sweetly naive folk melody left me wincing with discomfort. Whenever Grieg turns sentimental, he should be moving, and never sappy or (worse still) campy. Oh well — at least it had the positive effect of bringing Fischer's more artless approach with the same melody into greater relief.

It should be noted, however, that these reservations were minor exceptions in an afternoon of exceptional music-making. The pinnacle, beyond all debate, was Fischer's performance of the Third Sonata in C major for Unaccompanied Violin (BWV 1005) by Bach. Her recently recorded traversal of the Bach sonatas and partitas has elicited a lot of cautious praise in critical circles; there is still too strong a tradition relegating these masterpieces solely to violinists of near-emeritus status. (And it does not help that Nathan Milstein's legendary recording was made in his 69th year.) But at least on the evidence of her Sunday performance, Fischer deserves to be counted among the finest Bach interpreters of the past few decades.

Admittedly, hers is a style of interpretation that Baroque specialists will have much to grimace over, since Fischer's emphasis of long melodic lines and harmonic trajectories borrows more from the 19th century than the 18th. But who could ignore the ravishing manner of her approach to the second-movement Fugue, that potentially driest of musical genres? The clarity of her presentation — especially her ability to maintain each contrapuntal strand — coupled with an acute sense of the evolving emotional content, made her Bach satisfying on many different levels. More importantly, her adagio first movement captured that elusive quality that signals the finest performances: that this music is not merely played solo, but rather is a projection of musical solitude; that this music is not so much performed for an audience, but rather one that an audience is invited to overhear.

Fischer's encore was a surprising choice: the rarely heard Jewish Melody (Op. 33) of Joseph Achron. Although her pristine style of sound production was not terribly idiomatic — without all those ethnically evocative slides, her emphasis perhaps was more on "melody" than on "Jewish" — it was nonetheless breathtakingly expressive. The sheer amplitude of Julia Fischer's personal style will doubtless continue to excite for many years to come.