Timothy Ridout goes solo

February is shaping up to be a fruitful month for connoisseurs of solo string recitals. Hot on the heels of María Dueñas's Paganini Caprices last week, Timothy Ridout goes it alone today with a spellbinding album of works for unaccompanied viola by Telemann, JS Bach, Britten and Caroline Shaw. The programme may be less overtly virtuosic than Dueñas’s assortment of fireworks, but the masterly handling of the mighty Chaconne from Bach’s Partita in D minor strongly suggests that Ridout would be equal to anything Paganini could throw at him should he decide to follow in the footsteps of William Primrose and appropriate a couple of the Caprices himself…

It’s the Chaconne which brings the album to its imposing conclusion, but Ridout opens with something rather more understated: the first of the dozen fantasias which Telemann composed for the violin in 1735, taking care to keep the technical demands within the reach of proficient amateurs (as evinced by their presence on the Associated Board exam syllabus for the higher grades when both Ridout and I were earning our stripes).

It makes for an engaging curtain-raiser, the opening Largo unfolding with an airy, expansive grace in the resonant acoustic of St Silas in Kentish Town; a former boy chorister, Ridout audibly breathes with the music here, and there’s a lovely sense of line throughout. The unusually powerful lower register of his instrument makes its presence felt but is never overplayed, and the nimble Fugue which follows is done with great clarity, with Ridout adopting a pleasingly dry tone (perhaps in deference to that lively acoustic).

Perhaps the most striking moments, though, come in the Grave section of the final movement, where Ridout summons a straight, plangent timbre that sounds for all the world as if he’s temporarily traded in his big-voiced Peregrino Di Zanetto viola for a viol. It prepares the ground quite magically for what follows: namely Caroline Shaw’s haunting In manus tuas, originally written for solo cello but given here in the composer’s own adaptation for viola.

Inspired by Tallis’s motet of the same name, the piece has a spare, ascetic beauty which Ridout captures with tender loving care; that viol-ish quality again comes to the fore, and the extended pizzicato sections sound for all the world as if a lute’s been thrown into the mix as well. The former treble also gets to make a brief (wordless) singing debut here and does so in fine style, his clean countertenor emerging almost as an extension of the instrument.

Next up is Britten’s long-lost Elegy for Solo Viola, written the day after the sixteen-year-old composer walked away from Gresham’s School with distinctly mixed feelings; the work received its belated premiere from Ridout’s teacher Nobuko Imai in 1984, and her star pupil does it proud here. As Ridout points out, the piece testifies not only to the young Britten’s inner struggles but also to his precocious mastery of an instrument which had been a source of solace. Beginning on a low D flat (which Ridout notes is the lowest pitch on the viola where vibrato is possible), its wide-ranging lines sweep across the instrument’s entire range, with Ridout’s immaculate intonation and vibrant tone in the stratosphere never faltering.

Perhaps the main event, though, is the final work: Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin, transcribed by Simon Rowland-Jones. Once your ears have adjusted to the lower keys you quickly forget that this music was ever intended for another instrument, especially in a performance as technically accomplished and nuanced as this. Ridout really makes the Gigue and Courante stomp and swagger, whilst the spread chords in the Sarabande are given time to blossom and the tone is unfailingly beautiful – no grit in the oyster here.

And finally, that Chaconne. Ridout has clearly loved and lived with this behemoth for a long time, and every variation inspires him to mine his instrument for new colours and textures. In his booklet-note he hints that he may be tempted to record all six partitas and sonatas in the fullness of time, and I can only hope that it comes to fruition.