hilary hahn..violinist

When Heifitz's widow first heard Maxim Vengerov play, she gave him Heifitz's bow.

She sums up my feelings.

I had the chance to meet her when she played with the Cincinnati symphoney a few years ago. I also had her sign one of her cd's that is nice she is very good and we will see how her sound matures as she gets more experence.

I was impressed by all the praise, so I bought her SACD (which won a prize) of the Brahms concerto. The way this multichannel disc was mastered is so terrible that I am not sure that I can give a fair evaluation. (She is recorded equally in Left and Right Channels, as if the recording were stereo, and is missing from the center). I bought another Hahn SACD, the Bach double concertos, and this one is mastered better. However the playing also let me down a bit. I have these Bach concertos on a CD that I keep in my car which I copied, and I don't even know who is playing, but I like it better.

She is obviously good, but her playing just does not impact me the way some other performers do. For comparison, I dredged up an old Decca CD of the Tchaikovsky concerto played by a young (in 1982) Korean woman, Kyung Wha Chung, and to my ear she is/was superior. Tops in my opinion was David Oistrach, particularly for the Tchaikovsky. My old Angel LP is just about worn out. Itzhak Perlman, before his fame and fortune set in, was great.

But she is young. We will see where she goes.

I beleive like others above that it's too early to tell about Hahn. She has been benefitted by great modern recording ( at least in Redbook ).Both her Barber/Mayer cd and her Elgar cd are good though not stunning.Speaking of the Brahms, I was recommended last week to an unknown to me artist Erica Morini,whose 1956 recording of the Brahms & Tchaikovsky concertos was jaw dropping.Look for this cd on Westminster.

Hahn has impressed me quite a bit in person several times; I have heard the Brahms live with about 15 different violinists, and her performance was on par with Mutter's at the top of the list (though quite different than Mutter's). She has very solidly grounded interpretation, pays close attention to phrasing, overall direction, intonation, and clarity, and plays with more depth and range than several of the other young violinists.

Her recordings haven't impressed me as much, though they are all good (speaking of performance, not sonics); she is just up against tougher competition when you look at the great recordings out there. She has great potential.