Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Henri Vieuxtemps - Violin Concertos (Hilary Hahn)

Information

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Henri Vieuxtemps

• Mozart - Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219
• Vieuxtemps - Violin Concerto No. 4 in D minor, Op. 31

Hilary Hahn, violin

Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

Paavo Järvi, conductor

Date: 2015

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

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Review

I have always warmed to the ardent and honest playing of Hilary Hahn. In many ways this disc does not disappoint. The Vieuxtemps Concerto is beautifully poised, rich and vibrant; the scherzo brings out the best in Hahn’s wonderfully accurate technique, allied to a real sense of fun, while the outer movements have warmth and charm.

Just how hard it is to pull off a Mozart concerto is proved by the performance on this disc. While the Allegro aperto is lively and the finale is fun (with seemingly obligatory orchestral string-slapping noises in the A minor section), the slow movement is a bit dull. Hahn’s sound can be somewhat unrelieved – there’s the energy of a tight vibrato but there could be a touch more shape. Of course, we’ve become used to Mozart with ‘classical’ performance style in the orchestra, 19th-century cadenzas and 20th-century violin sound; but here, Hahn might have experimented a little more with a delicacy of vibrato to make the overall sound more transparent.

This said, this is an emotive disc, played with fire and commitment, and recorded to the standard one would expect of DG. Recommended.

— David Milsom

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was an Austrian composer, widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western classical music. With Haydn and Beethoven he brought the Viennese Classical school to its height. Despite his short life, Mozart composed more than 800 works in almost every classical music genre of his time. Many of his compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the repertoires, including his symphonies, concertos and sonatas for various instruments, chamber music, the Requiem in D minor, the operas Die Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni.

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Henry Vieuxtemps (17 February 1820 – 6 June 1881) was a Belgian violinist and composer. A prodigy, he studied with Charles Auguste de Bériot in Brussels, Simon Sechter in Vienna and Anton Reicha in Paris before touring extensively across Europe and the United States. He held teaching positions in St. Petersburg and Brussels. Renowned for his exceptional technical precision and rich tone, Vieuxtemps became one of the leading virtuosos of the 19th century, and his style was widely emulated. As a composer, he was equally innovative, with his violin concertos making important contributions to the development of the form.

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Hilary Hahn (born November 27, 1979) is an American violinist. She studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Jascha Brodsky, Jaime Laredo, Felix Galimir and Gary Graffman. A three-time Grammy Award winner, she has performed throughout the world as a soloist with leading orchestras and conductors, and as a recitalist. Hahn is an avid supporter of contemporary classical music, and several composers have written works for her, including Edgar Meyer, Jennifer Higdon, Antón García Abril, Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Lera Auerbach. Her violin is an 1864 copy of Paganini's Cannone made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume.

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