Fanfare (January/February 2006)

Jean-Marie Leclair's fourth and final book of sonatas for solo violin and continuo was published in Paris in 1743. It followed the composer's return to the French capital from The Hague in the wake of the bankruptcy of his patron, the formerly wealthy merchant François Du Liz. Like the three earlier books, there are 12 sonatas in the publication, each of which has four movements. As has been frequently noted, Leclair's great achievement was the fusion of the Corellian sonata with French style, perhaps the most successful (if far from unique) fruition of François Couperin's ambition to achieve a union of the two styles. In this respect, Leclair's sonatas show little sign of development over the course of the four books of sonatas, it having been plausibly suggested (in New Grove) that most of the sonatas were composed early in Leclair's career, and subsequently published by degree. There is certainly evidence that by the middle of the 1740s the composer was no longer fashionable, possibly because his music was by then considered outmoded.
The Brazilian violinist Luis Otavio Santos is a pupil of Sigiswald Kuijken, who has since maintained a close relationship with the great Belgian both as a leading player with La Petite Bande and as Kuijken's assistant director at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. On the evidence of this disc, he seems to me ideally equipped as a player of Leclair's music, possessing not only the technique to embrace the composer's sometimes formidable demands, but also the musical sensitivity to be able to shape long cantabile lines that are only occasionally marred by an inclination to « squeeze » sustained notes. Intonation is excellent, and Santos's double and multiple stopping is invariably cleanly and clearly executed. Tempos nearly always seem apposite, with allegros that respect Leclair's dislike of extremes.
Only in the case of the opening Largo ma non troppo lento of the G-Major Sonata do I feel Santos miscalculates, the tempo not only contradicting Leclair's qualification, but also sounding too slow. I like, too, his approach to rhythm, which pays full due to the strong dance element in the music of a composer who started his professional career as a dancer. This fine playing is complemented by admirably positive, yet unobtrusive continuo support.
All four works are outstanding examples of Leclair's art, but the palm perhaps goes to the A-Minor, which opens with a long, deeply felt Andante that ranges over an extraordinarily wide range of rhapsodic eloquence and technical demands that encompass high tessitura, sequences of double stopping that achieve climaxes full of tension (splendidly brought off by Santos), and carefully calculated echo-effects, here played with subtle nuance. Elsewhere in the same sonata one finds Italianate fire and brilliance in the second movement, the streak of melancholy that plays no small part in Leclair's musical makeup (Adagio), and wit and light-footed elegance in the gavotte-like final movement.
Both on musical, and interpretive grounds, this is a thoroughly rewarding issue, enhanced by handsome packaging from a company I've not previously encountered. The rather generalized notes could have been more detailed on the music itself, but that's only minor quibble about an undoubtedly superior production.

Brian Robins