Recording of the Year and Instrumental Award
RECORDING OF THE YEAR
Rachel Podger
Tutta sola
Works by JS Bach, Matteis the Younger, Nogueira, Vilsmayr, Westhoff, Tartini et al
Rachel Podger (violin)
Channel Classics CCSSA44422 (CD/SACD)
For Rachel Podger, it’s fair to say that all roads lead to Bach. As a teenager, the budding Baroque violinist was forced to indulge her passion in secret, fully aware that her Russian teacher – who believed in Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski and in following the competition circuit to success – disapproved greatly of the niche, Birkenstock-friendly world of historical performance.
Yet as soon as Podger witnessed an orchestra performing on Baroque instruments, invited to her German Steiner school by a forward-thinking choirmaster, she was hooked. ‘They were completely relaxed with no scaffolding, no chin rest, no shoulder rest, Baroque bows, the whole thing,’ she remembers. Her early experience of playing Baroque trio sonatas with her Bach-loving parents was all the foundation she needed to obtain a Baroque bow and gather a group of like-minded students, who
