Customer Reviews

Violin Concertos

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Miss Hahn has incredible virtuosity; some of the things she does here are/were not available even to Heifetz. Particularly, the down-bow stacatto passages in the first movement of the Mendelssohn have not been heard to such advantage before.

To each his/her own regarding intensity; the opening of the Mendelssohn has been performed with more power by several. This causes my rating of four rather than five stars.

Summing; very good, possibly exceptional to many. The SACD sound is superb.

The Shostakovich is one of my favorite pieces of music, brings tears to my eyes, something I want played at my funeral, or heard before I die. And the performance that is colossal is Oistrakh/Ormandy, Philadelphia. The tone, the rage against fate, the agony and the beauty, oh the beauty. I long for this recording to be reissued in SACD sound. (Sony is supposedly redoing their catalog in Blue CD sound.)

The Mendelssohn too is up against the great version by Stern/Ormandy, Philadelphia. (Avoid early masterings of this on CD which are like listening through a tin can.)

So, Hahn is up against an unfair comparisons, but there they are. I'm glad to have the new performance and her playing is excellent although there are very strange moments. She whips through notes with stunning speed and accuracy but often brings more attention to her fingering than the music. Sometimes I think why the rush? Still, it's excellent. Not colossal but excellent.

The problem comes with the recording and the orchestra. The engineers make it sound like everyone is playing in the next room and then at moments, they change the acoustic and spotlight - take the mics up on a section of the orchestra- throwing off the whole balance which is bad to begin with. In a concerto the two need to be somewhat equal partners, but the instrument leads and the orchestra follows. This recording is not content with that. At strange moments up come parts of the orchestra and I thought, why are those basses highlighted now? That is a supporting line. Probably because the sound is so bad that parts of the music would be lost without it.

I'm referring to the SACD version. I hope in remasterings they get it right. But I doubt they have the right balance on the tapes. But I hope so.

Hilary Hahn is really quite astonishing! Start with the pacing of the Mendelsohn. The first and third movements are among the fastest performances I have yet heard, but because she articulates every note so clearly, it never sounds rushed - simply mercurial! This is beautifully, beautifully done. Tonal colors are like a fireworks display - kaleidoscopic and tailored to each phrase.

The Shostakovitch is probing. From the outset the violin tone settles into an otherworldly quality that suggests unspeakable tragedy. Moving through a searing second movement into the Passacaglia, Ms. Hahn, for all her beauty of tone and sensitivity of phrasing is let down a little by a relatively impotent orchestral brass section. I heard her do this concerto in Carnegie Hall with the Royal Concertgebouw orchestra and I so wish she had been able to do this recording with them. Their low brass opened the Passacaglia movement with a menacing snarl not even suggested here. That set off and contrasted perfectly with the sweet open tone of the violin, as it transformed the menace of the horns into the soul-wrenching soprano soliloquy Shostakovitch intended.

Hahn does her part but the Oslo orchestra or the recording does not. The burlesque however, makes up for any previous shortcomings and overall, I advise everyone to buy this SACD.

I have to admit I heard Vadim Repin (also a wonderful performer) and the Czech Philharmonic in Carnegie do this same concerto and Repin was similarly let down by the Czech Philharmonic as was Hahn by the Oslo Orchestra in the Passacaglia as compared with the Concertgebouw, so it probably wasn't the recording so much as the orchestra. Interestingly, Hahn was, and in this recording is, intense where Repin (that night, at least) was cool. I would have expected otherwise.

The Mendelsohn is truly sensational and the Shostakovitch very satisfying despite my quips about the orchestra. You really owe it to yourself to get this!