A Two-Part Lecture-Concert
Presented by Victoria Martino, Baroque Violinist and Scholar
Tuesdays, March 30 and April 6, 2021
On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of J.S. Bachʼs composition of his Six Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin in 1720, Baroque violinist and scholar Victoria Martino will provide the audience with a unique opportunity to hear these celebrated masterpieces of the violin repertoire performed from Bachʼs autograph manuscript on an original period instrument. She will intersperse her performance with lively commentary about Bachʼs life, circumstances, and ideas, as well as remarks and explanations about the specific musical structure and form of the individual pieces.
With a dazzling virtuosity and haunting beauty that have enthralled audiences for three centuries, these remarkable works represent the apotheosis of violin literature, due to their daunting musical and technical demands. Hearing them in concert, one can scarcely believe that such rich harmonic complexity and profound emotional depth could be evoked by a single melodic instrument. Thematic, rhythmic, spatial, timbral, and tonal textures are conveyed within a panoply of musical forms, ranging from dramatic preludes and polyphonic fugues to lively dance suites. None other than the great Johannes Brahms wrote of Bachʼs Chaconne (the crowning centerpiece of the entire cycle), “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”
March 30 » Part I: The Sonatas (BWV 1001, 1003, 1005)
April 6 » Part II: The Partitas (BWV 1002, 1004, 1006)
About Victoria Martino
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and the University of California, Victoria Martino studied Baroque violin and early music performance practice in Boston with the legendary Robert Koff (Brandeis University, Harvard University). Since 1980, she has been performing as a Baroque soloist and chamber musician, collaborating with many notable figures in the international early music world, including Huguette Dreyfus (harpsichord), Paul Badura Skoda (fortepiano), Claudio Gasparoni (viola da gamba), Robert Barto (Baroque lute), Eduard Melkus (violin/viola/conductor), David Bellugi (recorder), and Peter Kairoff (harpsichord). For over a decade, she toured internationally with her own ensemble, the Albertina Soloists. Her extensive background includes roles as Associate Concertmaster of Capella Academica Wien for nearly 10 years and Principal Second Violin of the Wiesbaden Bach Orchestra, the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra, and the former Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra (now Musica Angelica). Martino plays an original (unmodified) Baroque violin by Michael Andreas Bartl (Vienna, 1760).
The lecture-concerts will be livestreamed via Zoom webinar. Ticket holders will receive a link before the lecture. Following each lecture, ticket holders will have 48-hour access to a recording. An email will be sent at 10 AM the day after the lecture with the link to the recording.