I'll String Along With Hilary Hahn...Anytime!

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.