Alina Ibragimova’s recording of Telemann’s twelve solo violin fantasias is a rare thing: historically informed but not academic, intimate but not small. She plays with a Baroque bow and gut strings, yet the result feels alive, breathing, utterly modern in its directness. Anyone who loves the solo Bach should hear this.
She makes you hear the air between the notes. That’s the first thing you notice about Alina Ibragimova’s Telemann — it’s not the flawless intonation or the effortless double-stops, though those are abundant. It’s the way she lets a phrase settle, then lifts it again. The Fantasias are short works, each a few minutes, but they feel like complete worlds.
Recorded at St. George’s Church in Brighton, the acoustic is warm but dry enough to catch every bow change. Andrew Keener produced, David Hinitt engineered — the same team behind many of Hyperion’s finest chamber records. They’ve captured the violin’s wood grain, the slight scrape of gut on gut, the natural bloom of a resonant church without smearing the details.
Ibragimova plays a violin by G. B. Guadagnini (c. 1760), fitted with gut strings and a Baroque bow. That choice matters. Telemann’s harmony leans into the instrument’s natural overtones — open strings ring sympathetically, adding a halo to the sound. On a modern setup, these fantasias can sound like studies. Here they sound like songs.
The A major Fantasia opens with a prelude that feels improvised, the line curving like a voice searching for melody. She takes it slowly, with rubato that never sounds applied. By the third bar you’re inside her phrasing, not watching from outside. The Gigue that follows bounces on a single thread of rhythm, light, airborne, as if the bow barely touches.
What’s striking is how she differentiates the movements without breaking the continuity. Each fantasia has four or five short sections — slow, fast, dance, flourish. Other players sometimes treat these as separate pieces. Ibragimova connects them with a single arc, a kind of breath that runs from the first note to the last.
She’s said in interviews that she never tries to “interpret” this music — just lets it speak. That’s modest, but the result is more than that. Her touch on the E string has a silvery edge; the G string growls when she digs in. The D minor Fantasia’s allegro section is almost violent in its attack, the bow biting into the string with a crackling attack that would sound ugly if it weren’t so controlled.
There’s a moment in the fifth Fantasia in A minor — a slow section marked Adagio — where she plays a single chord across four strings, letting it ring for a full measure. The decay reveals the church acoustic: a soft halo, then silence. It’s the kind of moment you only get with gut strings and a room that breathes.
The final Fantasia in A major closes the cycle with a simple, hymn-like Largo. She draws the phrase out almost to breaking, then releases into a fast gigue that ends on an open-string chord. It’s not a grand finish. It’s a return to the beginning, a circle closing.
You don’t need to know Telemann or the Baroque tradition to hear what’s happening here. It’s just a person and a wooden box and four strings, and the air in between.
What is the historical significance of Telemann's 12 Fantasias for Solo Violin?
Published in 1735, these fantasias were part of a set of three collections for solo instruments (flute, harpsichord, violin). They are among the first substantial works for unaccompanied violin, preceding J.S. Bach's sonatas and partitas by a few years. Each explores a different key and combines Italianate virtuosity with French dance forms.
How does Ibragimova's interpretation differ from other recordings of these fantasias?
Many modern recordings use a metal-stringed violin and a modern bow, which can make the music sound brilliant but sterile. Ibragimova's period setup gives the lines more grain and a softer attack. She also takes greater liberties with tempo and rubato, making the slow movements feel improvisatory rather than metronomic.
Is this recording available on vinyl or high-resolution digital?
Hyperion released this album on CD and in 16-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC. As of now, no official vinyl edition exists. The CD quality is excellent, but the recording's dynamic range and natural acoustic also reward a good DAC and headphones. It streams on Qobuz in CD quality and on Amazon Music Unlimited in HD.
Further Reading
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