Track Listing

1. 1 Poco allegro
2. 2 Andante grazioso
3. 3 Finale: Allegro
4. 1 Allegro moderato
5. 2 Adagio di molto
6. 3 Allegro, ma non tanto

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6277 in Music
• Released on: 2008-04-08
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
In another original pairing violinist Hilary Hahn brings together the familiar, highly commercial and long-awaited recording of the famous Sibelius Violin Concerto with the rarely performed Violin Concerto by Arnold Schoenberg. Hahn brings out the romantic qualities of Schoenberg's Concerto--known as one of the most difficult pieces in the violin repertoire--showing why it makes an ideal coupling with the Sibelius--"Hahn didn't merely play the notes, she passionately engaged with them." (The Daily Telegraph on a live performance of the Schoenberg Violin Concerto). As both an acclaimed Sibelius interpreter and a known advocate of 20th-century music in concert halls worldwide, Esa-Pekka Salonen is the ideal musical partner in this project.

Amazon.com
Few would argue that Schönberg's Violin Concerto makes for easy listening. Its angular expressions, weird, heavenly decoration and the long solos that seem designed to maim the violinist can be, simply, too much. Hilary Hahn, on this new CD, plays the work as if it were an outgrowth of Romanticism (which it is), rather than the start of a musical revolution (which it also was) and the result is lyrical, songlike, and, well, Romantic. Yes, the 12-tone thorniness is clear, but each melody makes sense not only within itself, but throughout the whole concerto. If the first movement puzzles, the Andante sounds practically like a Viennese Waltz and the finale is not only like a feat by a virtuoso, but a culmination. This is the most approachable performance of this work available. The Sibelius concerto gets a fine if unusual reading. Hahn plays it with a Nordic coolness; the first movement's long melodies have less passion than the listener will be accustomed to and even the finale, normally played with somewhat of a bellicose nature, comes off without much heat. But it certainly cannot be faulted as sheer gorgeous playing and neither can Esa-Pekka Salonen's accompaniments. -- Robert Levine

Customer Reviews

Clearly she's among the giants
I'm absolutely astonished with this recording. I'm an old string player with a doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music and I have studied the Schoenberg Concerto for years. I know firsthand just how difficult it is (you literally have to learn a new way to finger some passages, using your ring finger and not the pinky for the highest notes because the ring finger can reach farther up on lower strings!).

But the difficulties are not only technical: the piece is VERY romantic and it's EXCEPTIONALLY hard to bring that to it. I never hoped in my lifetime to hear a recording of this concerto as natural and lyrical as this one. Hahn has captured perfectly the atmosphere and drama of the piece. This could easily do for the Schoenberg Concerto what Isaac Stern's recording of the Berg Concerto did for that work.

My amazement is made the more so by the fact that for years I resisted even listening to Hahn's recordings: too young, couldn't be ready for the works she was performing. When I finally did condescend to hear her, I immediately bought everything she had ever done. She's a superb performer (she and Janine Jansen are arguably the two most musical young violinists on the scene today; and Jansen has shown no signs of being nearly as adventurous).

But when I heard she had recorded the Schoenberg Concerto, I have to admit that even with that background, I was skeptical. The work is just too much - it's tempting to think that it's too much for a human being. I'm glad I never gave in to thinking that: now I know it isn't true. This recording is amazing!

About Salonen little need be said: everything he touches turns to gold. The orchestra, of course, could easily have ruined things; that they rise to the level demanded by such a superb soloist and conductor speaks volumes for their remarkable abilities. I look forward to hearing much more from them.

The Schoenberg Violin Concerto has finally joined the Piano Concerto as a major brainchild of the composer, not merely a respected but unheard stepsister. I know it's not quite so adventuresome, Hilary, but perhaps a Berg Concerto to go with this one? At the right tempi, which I know you (unlike so many) will find?

Revelatory
The Schoenberg violin concerto is widely admired and widely studied, but it isn't much played, and it's never been much loved. This is partly because of the huge technical hurdles it presents fiddlers, but also because it isn't especially easy to bring off musically; in this regard it is unlike the piano concerto, say, which is far more accessible, and which offers up at least some of its beauties simply by being played accurately. I've heard most of the violin concerto performances previously committed to disc and never found them very pleasing; the soloist always seems to be eating his spinach like a good boy. As a consequence, I've always taken it to be one of Schoenberg's more rebarbative works, like the thoroughly unpleasant wind quintet. But Hillary Hahn has located the romantic soul of the piece --- she seems to see in it a kinship to a work like the Brahms concerto --- and delivers a performance that is not only technically thrilling but also very moving. It has fundamentally changed my opinion of this concerto; the score's mastery no longer feels predominantly theoretical, but rather, is characteristic of Schoenberg's masterpieces, big, generous-hearted, romantic.
The Sibelius performance is impeccable as well, but good performances of that very popular piece aren't so hard to come by. The Schoenberg is the reason to buy this CD.

Schoenberg Violin Concerto
The first thing I want to say in regards to this recording is, thank you. I've waited for a new recording of the Schoenberg Violin Concerto for years and Hahn/Salonen/Swedish RSO present near perfection. The previous reviews already cover a lot of ground and I'll try not to repeat too much.

Schoenberg is feared, his music "unapproachable, sterile, mathmatical." I say no. I've been an active Schoenberg fan for nearly 20 years. I love Bach, I love Beethoven. Schoenberg in many regards is following in that tradition, his music an extension or continuation of what they and Brahms and Wagner were doing with chromatic harmony and the formal structure of their music. Schoenberg simply took it one step further. I think the difficulty listeners find when approaching Schoenberg is following the melodic line. In my opinion there is no doubt it is trickier than tonal writing at least because, for the most part, tonal music is what we are familiar with. It takes effort for the listener to get used to this but the reward is a world of sound not available in tonal music.

I don't get overly caught up in how Schoenberg used the 12 note system (and whatever label you choose to apply to it). I hear the music as personal expression. He was, to my ears, a romantic composer, looking for ever more harmonic color and a master of counterpoint. At his best his music could be described as "hyper-romantic." For two examples other than his Violin Concerto, his Piano Concerto packs plenty of emotion as he describes leaving 1930's Germany behind and adjusting to California and his new life, and his Variations for Orchestra (see the Karajan version) presents simply HUGE romanticism.

As for the recording at hand, transcending music theory and making music that speaks is its strength. No reason to expand on that subject as previous reviews have covered at length how well this recording succeeds on that level. I will voice a complaint about the recording which is that I wish the orchestra playing was a little closer in the mix, more of a close-mic sound. Schoenberg's orchestrations are rich and some of the inner detail of the part writing is lost here. But make no mistake, this is an otherwise beautiful sounding recording.

I look forward hearing the Sibelius but right now I just can't get past this wonderful Schoenberg. Bravo!