Gramophone Awards
2023
Finalist - Instrumental

Presto Editor's Choice
October 2022

Presto Recordings of the Year
Finalist 2022

Rachel Podger (violin)

Bach, J S: Toccata & Fugue in D minor, BWV565
Vilsmayr: Artificiosus Concentus pro Camera a Violin Solo
Matteis the Younger: Fantasia in C minor
Nogueira: Movements from Nogueira Manuscript
anon.: Movements from Klagenfurt Manuscript
Westhoff: Suite for Solo Violin No. 2 in A major
Corelli: Select Preludes and Voluntaries for the Violin: Prelude in D Major
Gasparini: Select Preludes and Voluntaries for the Violin: Prelude in C Major
Vitali, T: Select Preludes and Voluntaries for the Violin: Prelude in D Minor (I)
Lonati: Select Preludes and Voluntaries for the Violin: Prelude in D Minor (II)
Purcell: Select Preludes and Voluntaries for the Violin: Prelude in G Minor
Tartini: Sonata Piccole, Op. 26 No. 17 'Del Tasso'

On her new album entitled Tutta Sola, violinist Rachel Podger plays solo repertoire from five European composers who all lived to celebrate new year’s eve in 1700. It is a wonderful baroque programme of selected solo violin pieces, preludes, dances and fugal movements. One person, at least with regards to the repertoire for Baroque violin, springs immediately to mind: Johann Sebastian Bach. But the German composer was not the only composer to experiment with ‘senza basso’ – music without accompanying bass –, and neither was he the first. In addition to Johann Sebastian Bach, this recording features solo violin music from Johann Joseph Vilsmayr, Nicola Matteis Jr., Johann Paul von Westhoff, and Giuseppe Tartini. Each of them were remarkable violinists in their own right, too. Rachel Podger’s previous solo album was hailed by BBC Music Magazine as “A breath-taking interpretation of Bach’s Cello Suites. A spellbinding set that is arguably Podger's finest recorded achievement to date". It was included in The Guardian’s Top 10 Best Classical CDs of the Year 2019.

"the most striking aspects of Podger’s playing throughout this recital (compared to most 20th-century ‘golden-agers’), is her enhanced range of tone and articulation, her vastly more flexible use of dynamics and phrasing and her temporal suppleness...Podger plays every piece with an explorative sense of excited discovery, playfully pointing up the various correspondences with Bach’s matchless works." - BBC Music Magazine, December 2022.