'I am not going to talk about the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin by J.S.Bach. The subject is too complex and multi-faceted. It would be like trying to describe music itself. All I can do is talk about my experience of this work, which the great George Enescu, called the “Himalaya” of violin playing. By performing the Sonatas and Partitas I am not trying to prove how good I am as a violinist or musician, this work will always be greater than any individual interpretation. This music must be approached with the utmost humility. Only like that there is a chance to catch a glimpse of the greatness of this work. It makes me think of staring at the sun. After a while, some filters are necessary. On this occasion the filter is individual experience. The Sonatas and Partitas are, after all, a mystery.
 

For whom, and why, Bach did Bach write them? Were they performed in his lifetime? By whom? These questions remain unanswered. What we know is that Bach was a very good violinist and that he never wrote anything that he could not play himself. And yet, it is hard to imagine that the work was performed in public during his lifetime. We still struggle with the technical and musical complexities of the work, even after the great advances achieved in string playing since the 18th Century. It is likely that Bach approached this work as a challenge to himself foremost and to others , with a somewhat educational as much as an artistic purpose. He achieved the miracle that he set out as his goal in transforming a primarily melodic instrument into a polyphonic one. Moreover, he did this with great virtuosity and nonchalance. For example, he chose to write the longest and one of the most complex fugues in all of his extensive creative output for one violin on its own, with its humble four strings, as the second movement of the Sonata in C major. 
 

In my interpretation, I try to bring a personal dimension and use my musical history and experience by emphasising the improvisational quality of the music. After all, J.S.Bach was one of the greatest improvisers of his era, a true jazzman of his time. In my childhood, as a student, my teachers used to tell me that one needs to reach a certain age to start to understand this music. At the time I used to laugh at and dismiss these remarks, however, I came to understand and agree with what they were saying. Well, I am not sure I have reached the necessary age, but I am certainly of an age which, by the quality of its antiquity, imposes on me to have a go at performing the complete Sonatas and Partitas of J.S.Bach before it is too late'
 

Alexander Balanescu