JS Bach Complete Sonatas and Partitas

Gramophone, October 2022

"You will struggle to find a more impassioned, feisty account of Bach’s solo music for violin. Verbier Festival Gold, the joint label collaboration from the Verbier Festival and DG, treats us to Kristóf Baráti’s Bach recital from the 2016 festival. For a taster of this electrifying performance, head straight to the Allemande from the Partita in B minor – crikey, someone had their spinach for breakfast. Baráti’s bow sears with intent. His sound is taut and vibrant, clenched in an intensity that is a hairline width away from the limits of his 1703 ‘Lady Harmsworth’ Stradivarius. It’s a performance that makes Linus Roth sound practically nostalgic in comparison, Leonidas Kavakos overly academic. And though Baráti’s vacillations into tender evocation, combined with Bach’s dancing dotted rhythms, leave me feeling a tad seasick, I can’t help but be a fan."