Bach's Works for Solo Violin: Style, Structure, Performance - Hardcover

Lester is very successful in not only bringing together an impressive variety of ideas, but also demonstrating with them how the performer can develop a similar historical approach to different pieces. (Yo Tomita, Musical Times, July 2000.)

The advice given in the interpretation of the Sciciliana is ... inspirational. (Yo Tomita, Musical Times, July 2000.)

Lester's commentary is fresh and revealing ... Also useful is his discusison of Bach's slurs, which have always been a confusing issue for musicologists and performers alike. Lester's discussion of the G minor Sonata is full of illuminating ideas for student violinists. (Yo Tomita, Musical Times, July 2000.)

For those who are not very familiar with - historically-informed performance -, Lester's discussion of Bachs Score will be an excellent introduction; it is a well-balanced overview of many issues concerning what can be gleaned from Bachs autograph. (Yo Tomita, Musical Times, July 2000.)

This book combines a performance guide for violinists, an analytical study, an exploration of Bach's style, and an investigation of musical form and continuity. J.S. Bach's three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin have been mainstays of the violin concert repertoire since the mid-nineteenth century; their long performance history, evidenced in recordings as well as in editions, offers an opportunity to study the ways in which notions of Baroque style have evolved. Central to the book is the question what type of analysis is best applied to Bach's music: wherever possible, Lester draws his analytical tools from eighteenth-century techniques, developed for this repertoire.