When people think of music for solo violin, they mostly think of Bach. There’s not much else in the repertoire to compare to the set of sonatas and partitas he completed in 1720. And the greatest movement in that set, the extended Chaconne in D minor, remains one of the greatest and most monumental achievements in the history of music.
Bach wrote for players with a virtuoso technique, but the set of 12 Fantasias for solo violin that Telemann published in Hamburg in 1735 had more humble goals. It was aimed at a domestic market of gifted amateur players. Telemann is unlikely to have known Bach’s solo violin music, which would not be published until 1802.
There’s nothing monumental in Telemann’s Fantasias. Alina Ibragimova’s new recording of the set’s 41 movements runs to 65 minutes, and she is always judicious in choosing not to probe the music for Bachian profundities that it doesn’t have to offer. Her 'less is more' approach is highly appealing, bringing an attractive dancing lilt to many of the faster movements in a set where actual dance designations are rare indeed. Her eschewal of vibrato even in the slow movements, and her light-fingered dexterity in the fast ones, make the most of the music’s contrasts. So forget Bach: think instead of a sequence of delectable morsels, exquisitely presented.