I'll String Along With Hilary Hahn...Anytime
Some reflections on a recital by one of
America's young major talents....
I listen to a lot of classical music, but
– like many people – I never took that music appreciation course in
college. It’s one of the many modest errors of my life, but a nagging one
in a minor key (don’t ask-I can’t tell
you).
But I like to think that I
have a reasonably competent ears after hundreds and hundreds of performances,
but experienced ears, absent substantive knowledge, is – well – just
another pair of ears.
I have felt
the pangs of my learning avoidance deeply on two occasions in the last year or
two, both times at recitals. The first was a performance by the German
bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff who sang with such intelligence and grace that
one felt genuinely privileged to be in the presence of such artistry.
The second was a recital last week
by the young American violinist Hilary Hahn. A while ago I had heard her
interviewed on NPR’s “Weekend Edition," followed by an excerpt from
one of her recordings. Something about her personality and quite a lot about
her playing jumped out at me. For example, when asked about why she made an
effort to meet the audience after a recital, she said that the audience was an
important element in her performance, no concert without them, in fact, and she
enjoyed meeting people. She's just a kid, I thought, but she gets
it....
The excerpt of her performing
showed an artist who brought, at the age of twenty-three, not only immense
physical skills but an musical intelligence which seemed extremely well
developed. I sat in my car, in the parking lot outside the supermarket, early
on a Sunday morning, until the end of the
segment.
As a result of this
introduction, I bought several of her recordings, each of which I now treasure,
but particularly her recording of partitas and sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach,
made when she was 17. I have always enjoyed listening to Bach, although I must
say that I have never liked his music very much (I’ve already admitted my
ignorance, you know.).
Hahn’s
recording brought me to a standstill; it was as though the clouds had parted and
this immense beam of light surrounded her performance – I sat in my chair
without coffee, without magazine or newpaper in aid of my limited musical
appreciation and listened with new
ears.
To say that I was interested
in hearing her play in person was an understatement, and I feared that I might
not be as amazed by her playing in person. In truth, from the first notes of
the opening Mozart sonata in her concert (with Natalie Zhu at the piano) I was a
goner.
Unlike many violinists who
get to the heart of a piece by boring in from the exterior, she seemed to start
at the center and encouraged us to come along. It may have been one of the most
interesting, if not amazing, experiences I've ever had in a concert hall.
What I heard her saying in her performance was, “I have thought about this
piece and responded to it, and this is where I am with it tonight, so let's
explore it together." It was not the "I've played this three hundred times and
frankly I'm a little bored with it" approach which I seem to have heard a bit
too much of over the years.
The Bach
partita she played was extraordinary, difficult runs seemed easy and in the
cascade of notes, clarity was all. That performance really finished me
off.
She didn’t showboat or
add unnecessary flourishes. She stood there in an iridescent gown, shifting
from foot to foot, and encouraged us to accept her offering. In rapt
concentration for over two and a half hours, we followed, accepted, and
celebrated our knowing that we were in the presence of the unassuming, almost
shy, “real thing, “ a major
artist.
Now at 24, she is in the
midst of a burgeoning career, and it will be fascinating to hear how she
develops her talent. In spite of my musical ignorance, I know this: Hilary
Hahn is one of those artists who changes her world – the parameters of
repertoire, the musical tastes of the audience, and unknowable aspects of
classical music in the coming
decades.
And if you read her online
journals at http://www.hilaryhahn.com, you will no doubt find her a interesting
diarist as well. As she explores her writing in the same way she explores the
music she performs, somebody will eventually tumble to the idea of publishing
them, and she will have "found" another career.
It’s good to get your
internal carillon rung by someone like Hilary Hahn - young, bright, thoughtful,
immensely talented - you tend to reconsider those easy shots about the
deficiencies of the younger generation and, in the case of Hilary Hahn to
appreciate the hope embedded in the music, in her performance, and in the artist
herself.
Nick
P.S.
Three of my faves from her recordings are Hilary Hahn Plays Bach (SONY), Brahms
and Stravinsky Violin Concertos (SONY), and the Beethoven Violin Concerto,
couples with Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade (SONY), all available from the
usual
sources.
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Selected
of these short pieces which have appeared here irregularly since 2001 have been
gathered together in a blog. To poke around them, just click
http://
Posted: Mon - February 23, 2004 at 06:47 AM