The most intriguing items on this carefully manicured disc from Joshua Bell are new “arrangements” of the mighty Bach Chaconne and the jaunty Gavotte en Rondeau, adapted for strings by Julian Milone from the Mendelssohn piano accompaniment for the Chaconne and Schumann’s similar underpinning for the Gavotte en Rondeau. The Gavotte makes a perfectly sweet, well-mannered miniature but the Chaconne, such a towering solo piece in itself, doesn’t gain a great deal from this treatment. Bach implies all the harmonies so subtly that to have them spelled out by more strings seems heavy-handed. There’s redemption, however, in crisp and exciting readings of the Violin Concertos Nos 1 and 2 (BWV 1041 and 1042), with Bell and the players in perfect accord.
