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Unlike some other performers, Manze plays all fifteen sonatas on the same 1700 Amati instrument, each requiring unique re-tuning of the instrument, known as scordatura. For the uninitiated, this process is explained in a short track at the end. Andrew Manze compares the pain he puts the violin through with each of these uncomforatable new tunings to a spiritual journey culminating in the Crucifixion and Resurrection. This analogy makes sense. This recording is both inspired and inspiring, Manze and Egarr at their best.
I have recently started to try to play these sonatas, and although they are by no means as technically difficult as, say, the Bach solo violin sonatas, they do require a high degree of sensitive musicianship to resonate with their subject-matter. I haven't heard the Cordaria recording, so cannot pass comment in the relative merits of these two recordings, but for me, Manze performs these sonatas with great sensitivity.
I am not clear as to livhouse's intended meaning in his/her second paragraph. Far from being a "bland piece of new-ageism masquerading as art" there is no question but that scodatura does change the resonances of the instrument. Notes that are normally 'reticent' may be given the chance to sing with the resonances of the open strings and the changing patterns of these resonances add subtle textures to the music. (The opening three notes of the second movement of "The Cruxificion and Death of Jesus" have three strings resonating together on the same note - magical). Loosening and tighting the strings to their new tunings gives a greatly altered tone palette, which is exploited here to the full.
This is a recording to be inspired by.
In the blues/roots tradition, by way of a primitive equivalent to the scordatura technique used by Biber, alternate tunings of instruments such as guitars banjos, and, yes, fiddles frequently show both the instrument and that particular musical idiom in a unique light. This is a worthy tradition that, while it doesn't go as far back as Biber, does at least have the provenance of Charley Patton, Robert Johnston et al., and usually reveals in its stark simplicity something of the nature of God (or in Johnston's case other less reputable spirits) talking to you through the musician.
Why then do we have this bland piece of new-ageism masquerading as art? I am emphatically not deriding the performances here, which it has to be said are up to Manze's usual high standard of competence, but if I hadn't heard him before I might have dismissed him as just another fiddle player, and shunned the composition as a quite unremarkable early music example.
To my mind this recording is over-arranged, and far too "soft-focus" in its approach. If you want "good musicianship" this may be for you, but for the spiritual experience it ought to be, go for the Cordaria version before it is deleted. (and save two quid while you're at it)
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