Pop artists from Taylor Swift on down have recorded albums at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, but such an arrangement is necessarily more difficult in classical music. This EP by violinist Ray Chen is one of the few examples, but given its commercial success, it is likely that others will follow. Chen's album was not just recorded during the pandemic, but addresses it directly: the solace referred to in the title is the album's goal vis-à-vis the feelings of listeners. Moreover, each of the six movements, taken from Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin, is intended by Chen to embody a specific pandemic-related emotion. Familiar joy and connection, anxious worry, isolation and sadness, frustration, and finally, for the last two, a feeling of hope. This is intriguing, even leaving the present project aside, for constructing a mix-and-match Bach violin suite is probably something no one else has attempted. Chen perhaps shapes his readings to match the specified emotion, but the program holds together reasonably well and does what he wants it to do. Another attraction is Chen's "Joachim" Stradivarius, formerly owned by Brahms' compatriot Joseph Joachim; it's ideal for this kind of interpretation of Bach. Those feeling down, for pandemic reasons or otherwise, might do well to take Chen's cure.
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