Bach: The Six Sonatas & Partitas for Violin Solo

Bach: The Six Sonatas & Partitas for Violin Solo was added to the iTunes library in October 2007 and became the best selling double album of 2007.

Reviews of Bach: The Six Sonatas & Partitas for Violin Solo

The Strad

"St John is particularly adept at balancing the interplay of internal parts and preserving continuity of line and rhythmic flow...she conveys the gravitas of Bach’s language with mature assurance...These attributes, combined with her clean, accurate left-hand technique, her keen ear for tonal colouring and the highly individual, largely unforced sound that she produces from her 1779 ‘Salabue’ Guadagnini violin, result in a thought-provoking achievement from a rapidly maturing artist, beautifully recorded in a unique three-dimensional manner."

American Record Guide

"I simply don't know where else you can go to hear Bach played at this level of artistry. Once again she eclipses her competition"

New CDs by classical artists in their 30s show they're here to stay

"Lara St. John stands fully clothed by the beach on the cover of her new Ancalagon CD, but the Canadian violinist has become an even more impressively untamed Bach player than when her publicity photos were more provocative. Her account, in excellent SACD sound, of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas is wild, idiosyncratic and gripping."

The Plain Dealer

"...a stunning acheivement. The Canadian violinist takes the music at its written word, while imbuing each piece with personal touches that cast new light on familiar ground."

Blogcritics Magazine

"...easily the best in the past 20 years. She has lost none of her youthful and daring enthusiasm for the time-worn pieces while gaining a certain gravity that allows her to reveal additional treasures contained in the Master’s scores. St. John’s intonation and approach are flawless."

Audiophile Audition

"St John owns this work and I have rarely been so convinced of the rightness of an interpretation...Her passionate, complex readings catapult to the top of my list, and I am still discovering things with score in hand after hearing the set four times so far."

The Glass Shallot

"And it would probably be good if you knew that you will like this music even if you've never listened to anything so-called 'classical'."

With that, the most recent (and extremely bloggy) Shallot Q&A with Lara St. John.

Toronto Star CD Reviews

"...awe-inducing solo playing. There isn't a note or nuance that isn't accounted for."

Bach: The Six Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo (Hybrid SACD)

"St. John's Bach has strong personal flair and a sense of dramatic sweep, as though she were an actress playing a role rather than a musician with an instrument; it is variable in tone, broadly expansive rhythmically and dazzling technically. St. John's Bach is also, in a word or two, breathtakingly beautiful."

More Musicians go the Download Route

"St. John sounds terrific on these pieces, playing with big colors, intense interpretations, and in several cases, dazzling speed. Her tempos throughout are on the fast side, which I like, and she does memorable things with her performance like opening the D major of the big Chaconne from the Second Partita with a hushed, amost defeated sound, before building up again to the end."

Seduction of the Violin

"Her new recording (Bach: The Six Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo) is nothing if not intense. And like St. John's choices about marketing and packaging, it's also fresh and new. There's a brilliance and sparkle to her playing, an energy and momentum."

A recent review of Lara playing J.S. Bach Partita No. 2 in d and Sonata No. 3 in Montreal

"Power and Glory"

"The Montreal High Lights Festival inaugurated its classical programming Thursday with Lara St. John, a violinist once known for her eye-popping cover art and aggressive style. That was the 1990s. The blonde playing Bach in the Bonsecours Chapel was a serious musician, and of the highest order.

A close-to-symphonic tone, a personal way with a phrase: Such artistry defeats all questions of historical correctness. If an interpretation that plumbs the depths and scales the heights of the famous Chaconne is not authentic, what is?

It was interesting to hear St. John project sustained notes without vibrato, not to attenuate the sound but to expand it. The fugue of the Sonata No. 3 was masterful both intellectually and technically. The double of the Courante from the Partita No. 1 was astonishing. What velocity and bravura!

St. John dedicated the Sonata to a friend whose death she learned of only that afternoon. Is this why the recital was so powerfully conceived and expressed? Only about 70 people were present, but they will not soon forget the experience."

Bach: The Six Sonatas & Partitas for Violin Solo Tracks

Disc 2