Hilary Hahn still amazing the critics

By -

Hilary Hahn received a couple of reviews from a couple of different concerts last week. What is amazing about this current spate of reviews is the concerts are only days apart showing her ability to not only provide a stunning performance, but to do so consistently. She has a grueling schedule over the next month, coming off a manic schedule in February and still she amazes the critics.

David Patrick Stearns of Philly.com wrote an extended glowing review of her concert in Philadelphia last Thursday:

"The concert could be called Hahn's song-and-dance program. The unlikely and rather weighty combination of Ives (three violin sonatas), Brahms (seven Hungarian Dances), Ysaye (two unaccompanied violin sonatas), and Bartok (six Romanian Folk Dances) showed composers of hugely different temperament but whose lifetimes overlapped one another, all attempting to access the kind of melodic energy they heard in the vernacular music going on around them.

Hilary Hahn & Valentina Lisitisa
"Was Hahn being intentionally provocative by pairing Brahms and Ives? In his writings, Ives was a particularly cranky Yankee on the subject of his Viennese elder - and indeed dominated Hahn's program. She played Violin Sonatas Nos. 1, 2, and 4, though hardly in the typical fashion that attempts to show the early-20th-century composer as decades ahead of his time - or as some eccentric folk-art counterpart to Grandma Moses. With pianist Valentina Lisitsa, the sonatas came off as American impressionism, though without the kind of tonal stability of, say, Debussy."

John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune gave a similarly glowing tribute of her concert in Chicago on Sunday, comparing Hahn with Pinchas Zukerman who also performed in Chicago this weekend:

Two Eugene Ysaye solo sonatas proved that Hahn commands a technique second to none among today's young superstars of the violin.

Highlighting (Zukerman's) program was Dmitri Shostakovich's Viola Sonata, the final work completed by the Russian master before his death in 1975. Zukerman's reading burned with bleak intensity.

Upcoming concert dates:

Mar. 11Toronto, ON
Roy Thomson Hall		 Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Higdon: Violin Concerto (Canada Premiere)
Mar. 22Baden Baden, Germany
Festspielhaus		 Valentina Lisitsa, piano Recital
Mar. 23Berlin, Germany
Philharmonie		 Valentina Lisitsa, piano Recital
Mar. 25Ljubljana, Slovenia
Cankarjev Dom		 Valentina Lisitsa, piano Recital
Mar. 26Vienna, Austria
Konzerthaus		 Valentina Lisitsa, piano Recital
Mar. 27Zagreb, Croatia
Dvorana Lisinski Halle		 Valentina Lisitsa, piano Recital
Mar. 29Perugia, Italy
Sala dei Notari		 Valentina Lisitsa, piano Recital
Mar. 30Milan, Italy
Conservatorio Verdi		 Valentina Lisitsa, piano Recital
Apr. 1London, UK
Barbican Hall		 Valentina Lisitsa, piano Recital

Wouldn't you know it... I'm moving from the UK at the end of this month just in time to MISS her appearance in London.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In ...
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

Teaching Composition – What are we trying to achieve

By -
In the process of learning composition I have spent time with a number of instructors who have encouraged me to write twelve-tone, pitch-class, electro-acoustic and other forms of experimental techniques. No matter how much I might understand and appreciate the work of other composers in the genres, these are not forms of music I resonate with. They are simply not forms of music I listen to and I struggle with the idea of writing them. However, in a Master Class by Libby Larsen she made the comment, “Learn them all, because all forms of music have something to offer.” This I very much agree. There are elements of each of the above mentioned forms (and others) that I do resonate with. Berg’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful twelve-tone work, although it is possible to look at numerous sections of the music with a “tonal” analysis. Another composer friend, Gary Bachlund commented that using these techniques can narrow the choices for how to compose a piece of work. If you look at ...
Read more