Morimur. (More Jazz Than Not).

Christoph Poppen/The Hilliard Ensemble: Morimur (ECM New Series 1765 289 461 895-2)

This one is going to take a bit of explaining. I'm not even sure where to start. But I'll take a deep breath and get going ... J.S. Bach wrote a series of sonatas and partitas for solo violin, among them the composition that is the focus of this release, the Partita in D minor, BWV 1004. In examining the score for this piece, musicologist Helga Thoene purported to find in the text the skeleton of "hidden" harmonies that could be construed to point the way to harmonies that can be unfolded to reveal chorales. (The liner notes go into more detail -- I have given just the broadest outline, and clumsily at that.) So what we have here is a recording that presents Christoph Poppen on the baroque violin and the voices of the Hilliard Ensemble presenting the solo violin work and the chorales, both jointly (i.e., Mr. Poppen playing along with the Hilliard Ensemble) and individually (i.e., sometimes Mr. Poppen playing a solo, sometimes the Hilliard Ensemble singing unaccompanied by the violin).

The music is interesting (it is by Bach, or at least based on Bach), but the way the program is laid out tends, at least to these ears, to shift too abruptly in sonority. After hearing the harmonies of the Hilliard Ensemble, to shift to the solo violin is quite a switch.