Hilary Hahn - Paganini: Violin Concerto No. 1 / Spohr: Violin Concerto No. 8
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Free Music Notes for Paganini: Violin Concerto No. 1 / Spohr: Violin Concerto No. 8
Free Music Review: It was good considering the pieces
Hit: 4 Stars
First things first, I am very biased towards hilary hahn. But I am a violinist so I know what I am talking about. The paganini could be a little more powerful, but her cadenza is nothing to sneeze on. Listening tot he spohr for the first time, its probably as good as its going to get. Recently watching Hilary play the Britten violin concerto, I wish she put that on there instead of the Spohr.Free Music Review: too boomy
Hit: 4 Stars
The violin playing is beautiful, but for you audiophiles, the bass sound is a little boomy.Free Music Review: A disappointment
Hit: 3 Stars
Having anticipated Hilary Hahn's approach to these two romantic and virtuosic scores, I wasn't prepared for the kind of disappointment I recieved when I finally heard the CD. While Paganini and Spohr were great virtuosi in their day -- and these two concertos are supposed to present that virtuosity -- Hahn disappoints badly in the Paganini. She is aided in no part by the completely inadequate support she receives from Eiji Oue and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Hahn is simply too reticent and uninvolved as a virtuoso in her performance of the Paganini Concerto No. 1. Her first movement technique is OK but her tone is thin and she consistently underwhelms where she should be burning up the bow. Her langourous pace leads to a performance of Emile Sauret's cadenza one might call the "wanderer" cadenza where she meanders musically with no apparent destination.
It's more of the same in the second movement, where Hahn's slow, almost lifeless, approach bleeds the life out of the score. She picks up markedly in the third movement where her initial double stops lead to a wiry tone that neither represents nor suits her. Still, this is the best section in this performance.
In the far less technically challenging Concerto No. 8 by Spohr, Hilary responds more naturally to the fluid lyrical style of the composition, which better suits her dreamy romance. Unfortunately, the 19-minute concerto is lightweight and hardly a match for the Paganini. You might like it but you won't listen to it very often.
Hahn receives terrible support in both concertos by Oue and the Swedish group. When Oue (pronounced o-WAY) was conducting the Minnesota Orchestra, I asked my friend in Minneapolis about him. "Most people wish he would just go away," he responded. You know why after listening to his disastrous support here.
While I give Oue points for trying to spruce up Paganini's concerto, no amount of denial can hide the dull booming timpani strokes that arrive in almost every phrase of orchestral support. It begins sounds more like a bunch of books falling off a shelf onto a metal floor than timpani after while, as if Hilary's recorded was digitally inserted into a disaster film score.
Oue's timing and imagination could be replaced by a metronome, so repetitive is his phrasing throughout the piece. He provides less mechanical support in the Spohr but it is bland and the orchestral palette is filmy. The orchestra also has intonation and pitch problems during its large moments in the Paganini.
The notes adequately discuss the composers and give you a brief essay by the soloist but say nothing otherwise about the performers. Later details show the recording was made in Stockholm in 2005-06. Finally, to end a long list of complaints, DG puts the movement timings on neither the back cover nor inside front cover, making it difficult to view them when listening in the car. They give you several nice photos of Hilary instead.
I feel generous giving this review three stars since the Paganini is so inadequate. It's not one of my favorite scores but every recording I've ever heard is better than this one. The last one I owned -- with Vengerov playing and Mehta conducting (a recording no critic thought too great) -- seems like an unqualified masterpiece next to this one. Compared to Hahn's listless traversal, Vengerov is felicitous. Compared to Oue's loud, mechanical, percussive support, Mehta is the archbishop of subtle persuasion.
The best recording I've ever heard of the Paganini is by Alfredo Campoli supported by Pierino Gamba and the London Symphony. Recorded in the 1960s, Campoli performed the Kreisler revision of the score which essentially puts the whole thing into a single movement.
That recording last appeared on a discount London Treasury Series LP that Decca/London never reincarnated on CD. I bought the record in college and paid a guy in Nebraska to burn me a high quality CD a few years back. The LP was mated to an outstanding reading of the St. Saens Violin Concerto No. 3. Decca would do us all a favor by releasing it on CD.
As other reviewers here will tell you, this recording is for fans of the violinist. Her trademark warmth and romance are on display in a good recording. Yet she so underplays the drama, virtuosity, intensity and sheer good spirits of the Paganini that her rendering cannot be considered more than average. She is better in the Spohr but that concerto in largely forgettable. Unless you're a Hahn supporter, I'd say pass on this one.
Free Music Review: Nice Try! Hilary
Hit: 3 Stars
I sincerely disagree with any of previous reviewers. I don't have much to write because I only listened the CD several times so far. Just a few cliche.
First her bowing is too much concentrated on A & E. Not enough G & D and too much A & E, I guess. Also the orchestra's interpretation is too mechanical (This, you can not blame her.) It's just like dropping same glass bottles onto the concrete floor all the time. I can not say that they are not the world class one, but for the scores it just did not work. It seems beyond the matter of interpretations. Also Hilary Hahn has been downhill skiing ever since that Brahms VC, and i truly believe that it has nothing to do with the workmanship of recent part replacement. I think perhaps Maestro Maazel can teach a few of lost arts about bowing. Also do not try to find all the answers from your relationship with the instrument. Hey I am just trying to help here.
Free Music Review: Not The Paganini I Know
Hit: 3 Stars
A thoroughly adequate workman-like performance. No doubt probably technically correct in every detail, this rendition of the Paganini concerto lacked the fire and passion I associate with this great Italian violinist and composer's virtuosity. Likewise, this version of the Spohr work lacked the heart and good humour one should expect from a world class performance. Let us hope that eventually Ms. Hahn will mature.