Highly-regarded Russian-born violinist Liza Fertschtman is heard on this Hybrid SACD performing key works of the solo repertoire written during the 17th, 18th and the 20th centuries.

J S Bach’s Partita No.2 for solo violin is the focal point of the programme presented here. It is a piece to which the works of Bartok and Berio make strong references. Bartók’s Sonata represents what many consider to be the pinnacle of what is possible on the violin, without having virtuosity as its main objective. The consonance and the battle between two notes lies at the heart of Berio's Sequenza VIII. After powerful confrontations between these notes, the music gradually subsides in volume and they end up forming a mellifluous union of sound.

Like the other pieces on the disc, a constant rhythmic pulse underpins Biber’s Passacaglia, with its persistent repeated cadence of four falling notes.

The daughter of well-known Russian musicians, Liza Ferschtman took her first violin lessons from Philip Hirschhorn at the age of five. Her other most significant teachers were Herman Krebbers, Ida Kavafian at the celebrated Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and David Takeno in London. In early 2013 she appeared with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer, making her debut in Budapest, Montreal and the Avery Fischer Hall in New York, a concert that was described by the New York Times as “nothing short of revelatory”.

A passionate chamber music devotee, Liza performs with musicians such as Elisabeth Leonskaja, Jonathan Biss, Alisa Weilerstein, Christian Poltera, Julius Drake, Nobuko Imai, Lars Anders Tomter, Marie Luise Neunecker and Sharon Kam.