Rosand Offers a Compelling Concert

When composer Darius Milhaud described music as “geometry in sound,” he may have been thinking of the music of J.S. Bach, especially his six works for unaccompanied violin. Aaron Rosand offered these six paragons of Euclidian clarity and symmetry--three sonatas and three partitas--in two installments Sunday (before and after dinner) at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library.

In spite of an impressive discography, some 20 CDs in circulation, and a deserved reputation as a “violinist’s violinist,” the 70-year-old American virtuoso is sadly lost among the dazzling array of today’s heavily marketed young superstars. It would be easy to characterize Rosand’s approach to Bach as out-of-date, Romantic violin playing, untainted by current doctrines of period performance practice. Indeed, Rosand’s rich, burnished sonority, sumptuous double-stops, seamless legato and generous vibrato suggest Brahms and Bruch rather than Bach. But it should be remembered that out-of-date can also mean timeless.

Rosand builds lyrical arches of sound in which each note is as beautifully formed as a pearl on a Tiffany necklace. In the partitas, this pursuit of a beautiful line sometimes overshadows the individual rhythmic character of each dance movement, and in the really fast movements, there is little sense of abandon. But his slow tempos, although they lean to the ponderous side, allow him to spin out limpid cantilenas rich with pathos and hard-won insight.

In the larger scheme of things, Rosand’s Bach is compelling because of its spiritual depth, a timeless quality that is not about the performance practices of either 1720 or 1920 or 2020. By the time he completed the famous Chaconne from the D Minor Partita at the recital’s finale, the audience knew it was standing on holy ground.