Violin Concertos

Hilary Hahn (Artist), Mendelssohn (Artist), Shostakovich (Artist), Opo (Artist)

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 5, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00006LWQH
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #65,847 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Though at first glance these two concertos seem an odd coupling, Hilary Hahn offers convincing reasons for pairing them in her scholarly but rather chatty program notes. For the listener, the most important one is her avowed love and affinity for the music, which speak through every note of her performance. At 22, Hahn has developed from an arresting teenage prodigy into a formidable violinist. Her technique is equal to all challenges and so effortless that one forgets about it. Her tone has the directness and intensity of a laser beam and the unblemished purity of fine-spun crystal. This carries over into her style: clear and straightforward, without fuss, external effects, or exaggeration--there is hardly a slide on the whole record. If her playing is rather cool, it's also noble and emotionally so genuine that she can make a popular warhorse like the Mendelssohn sound fresh and new. She takes few rhythmic liberties, but freely changes tempo for mood and expression: the second theme of the first movement is much slower than the rest. The Shostakovich, too, sounds new and different. A repertory staple of all great Russian violinists, it is usually played with a lush tone and unbridled emotionality. Hahn captures the work's bleak, lamentatious despair, the obsessiveness and sardonic irony, but her playing has the sort of fire that burns ice-blue rather than red-hot. It projects a sense of restraint, of pent-up tension and excitement that finally burst out in the cadenza. It is a riveting performance. The orchestra is very good, but often too loud in the Mendelssohn. --Edith Eisler

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A young virtuoso makes a gritty piece her own, July 27, 2004

By	Bruce Hodges (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

About two years ago I first heard Hilary Hahn do the Shostakovich live -- and liked it so much that I heard her perform it again a few weeks later. For someone so young, she really has an incredible measure of what the work is about. (Let's hope when she is older she will record it again.) Aside from her (apparently) note-perfect reading, she plays it a bit cool with her interpretation, which some have felt as an indicator that she is a bit young for this difficult work. I don't quite agree: her seeming reticence only emphasizes the more sorrowful passages in the piece, and this work is chock-full of those.

Hahn blazes through the final pages with amazing energy, and at times it seems that Marek Janowski and the Oslo Philharmonic will be hard pressed to keep up with her -- but they do, winningly. The Mendelssohn is also engaging, if as some have noted, the coupling of these two concerti might seem a bit odd. (I confess that as a piece I prefer the Shostakovich.) Never mind. Here conducted by the excellent Hugh Wolff, Hahn brings out the poetry and melodic invention that makes this work so enormously popular. And it could be argued that its relative sweetness makes a nice contrast to the violence of the Shostakovich.

Sony's sound is very good -- no complaints. Hahn is rapidly mowing down staples of the violin repertoire and proving she is one of the best violinists around. If you like these pieces, here is a great opportunity to hear for yourself.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very special promise and a glittering technique, November 1, 2005

By	Santa Fe listener - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

The other reviewers here have touched on many points that don't need repeating about Hilary Hahn's silvery tone, exemplary technique, and fresh approach. Hearing her in perosn makes clear that she has charisma, a special gift of communication with the audience that keeps an entire concert hall silent while she plays. Her tone is rather small, very sweet, and naturally lyrical. She makes no attempt to produce a fat virtuoso sound.

This would seem to work agaisnt her in the Shostakovich, which is dominated by the classic interpretation from Oistrakh, biggest of all big violinists. But Hahn makes something different of the Shostakovich First Concerto, turning her back on its very Russian black sorrow and biting irony. The orchestra still sounds that way, but Hahn herself becomes a lone voice of lyrical balm, and the contrast is very convincing. Oistrakh was such a powerhouse in the long cadenza at the end of the slow movement that every other violinist since has been tempted to try the same huge approach. Hahn is penetrating, gritty, and wiry instead--it's the only time she allows herself actual grit. Her finale is mercurial, more positive emotionally than the usual biting slashes one hears from everyone else.

The Mendelssohn is lightness and lyricism all the way, which means that Hahn misses many chances for depth and inward phrasing such as Menuhin famously found in his classic postwar recording with Furtwangler (EMI). Hahn's mercurial swiftness becomes pure delight in the very fast finale, and her feminine sparkle (I mean that as a high compliment) results in a captivating performance that holds one's interest from first to last. Highly recommended in both works.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Mendelssohn Violin Concerto I've ever heard, January 11, 2004

By	PHILLIP SCHEARER (Devon, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had the great good fortune to see Hilary Hahn play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra when she was 14 years old. She absolutely thrilled me with both her playing and her stage presence. A lady behind me sniffed, "I pay my money to see stars, not children." I wish I had told the woman what I was thinking: "Lady, you HAVE seen a star but you're just too dense to realize it."

This is the best Mendelssohn Violin Concerto I have ever heard. Of the scores of times I have heard this work on record or in concert, none has come close to Hahn's combination of precision and passion. The extraordinary maturity of her musicianship reveals surprising depths to what is ordinarily an old warhorse. In addition to the solo performance, the orchestral support also surprised me with a power I never expected to hear in the Mendelssohn. The word "virile" came to mind, which I would never have associated with this work. But Hilary always soars with and above the orchestra. I played this recording for a musician friend and he was as excited by it as I was, and he too has since bought all her recordings.

I cannot recommend this recording more highly. I do not have enough familiarity with the Shostakovich to say anything about it except that if this recording contained only the Mendelssohn, it would still be worth it.