Hilary Hahn's concerto recordings

[ahinton]

Stravinsky was not best known for making complimentary remarks regarding Schoenberg's musical output but he held the violin concerto in the highest regard. So very different from his own contribution to that repertoire.

Given Schönberg's own rueful remarks about his own concerto and given its nature (even now so much of its content has been so wondrously clarified - probably as never before, I'd submit - in Hahn's performance), it is indeed surprising (at lest to me) that IS valued the work as he did. I'm the wrong person to get into discussions of IS, though, the vast majority of his post-Petrushka works doing little or nothing for me beyond eliciting appreciation that at least they do all sound as though they were written by the same composer, which is something for which to be thankful, I suppose. At least Stravinsky was never as rude about any of Schönberg's works as Sorabji once was about that concerto when he argued against its composer's assertion that he'd added another unplayable work to the repertoire by asserting that he'd actually subtracted one from it; I suspect, however, that he'd have changed his tune (or note-row, or whaever) had he heard Hahn in this piece.

[Barbirollians]

It would have been Perlman, Richard.
My favourites in the Berg are Suk and Stern - both recorded a longish time ago.
What would be more current recommendations?

Isabelle Faust and Arabella Steinbacher both coupled with very different performances of the Beethoven Concerto .

Whilst i am also a fan of the Suk coupled rather oddly with the Mendelssohn and Bruch 1 - Kyung Wha Chung's performance with Solti i have a very soft spot for .

[HighlandDougie]

It would have been Perlman, Richard.
My favourites in the Berg are Suk and Stern - both recorded a longish time ago.
What would be more current recommendations?

Isabelle Faust and Claudio Abbado - I find it to be a deeply moving performance which sits happily alongside Suk/Ancerl and Grumiaux/Bour on my shelves.

[Thropplenoggin]

Isabelle Faust and Claudio Abbado - I find it to be a deeply moving performance which sits happily alongside Suk/Ancerl and Grumiaux/Bour on my shelves.

I struggle with Faust's tone, which I find wiry and unpleasant, so much so that I am re-selling her first version of the Beethoven VC on Harmonia Mundi.

If memory serves, I believe the Suk/Ancerl was the BaL winner for Berg's VC a while back - deservedly so.

[richardfinegold]

Given Schönberg's own rueful remarks about his own concerto and given its nature (even now so much of its content has been so wondrously clarified - probably as never before, I'd submit - in Hahn's performance), it is indeed surprising (at lest to me) that IS valued the work as he did. I'm the wrong person to get into discussions of IS, though, the vast majority of his post-Petrushka works doing little or nothing for me beyond eliciting appreciation that at least they do all sound as though they were written by the same composer, which is something for which to be thankful, I suppose. At least Stravinsky was never as rude about any of Schönberg's works as Sorabji once was about that concerto when he argued against its composer's assertion that he'd added another unplayable work to the repertoire by asserting that he'd actually subtracted one from it; I suspect, however, that he'd have changed his tune (or note-row, or whaever) had he heard Hahn in this piece.

Perhaps IS extolled it precisely because AS denigrated it.

[richardfinegold]

It would have been Perlman, Richard.
My favourites in the Berg are Suk and Stern - both recorded a longish time ago.
What would be more current recommendations?

You are correct. As a further confirmation of my incipient senility, I found the CD on my shelves and just finished listening to the Berg, for the first time in years. That music used to seem very challanging to me but it now strikes me as a"mainstream" in that it is a direct descendent of the great Romantic Violin Concertos.
Suk sounds promising. I think may have been recently reissued as part of the Supraphon Ancerl series.

[HighlandDougie]

Interesting point from Throppers about Faust's tone. She seems to fall into the "marmite" category where people either rave about her or actively dislike the results she produces. Given the French propensity to say what they think (and then some), the comments on Amazon France on the Berg/Beethoven disc are worth reading if you want to see how people react very differently to her. I very much like the insights she brings to the Berg but I accept that her sound is not going to be everyone's taste. It's certainly not "comfortable" but is Berg meant to sound comfortable?

However, before I get into more trouble for recommending duff recordings, another more modern recording of the Berg which I like (and which is the other version I listen to when on my travels) is that by Anne-Sophie Mutter and James Levine. Not sure that I'm allowed to admit liking the formidable Frau Mutter but the combination of her playing, James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra produces fine results. Suk and Ancerl still sound pretty OK - the warmth of the Rudolfinum acoustic means that the recording wears quite well.

[Andrew Preview]

Interesting point from Throppers about Faust's tone. She seems to fall into the "marmite" category where people either rave about her or actively dislike the results she produces.

Interesting indeed. I thought I was alone in disliking her tone, but clearly I'm not. It's a shame because I like her interpretations of the Beethoven and Berg.

As for Mutter, I like her early recordings with Karajan but I'm afraid that I find most (though not all) of her work from the past couple of decades hard to stomach. I suppose you could say that there's no mistaking her style, but that isn't necessarily a good thing.

[mikealdren]

Interesting that no-one seems to have warmed to her Elgar, Tchaikovsky or Sibelius. I'm a huge fan of HH but she doesn't seem to get on with the romantic repertoire. Fabulous technically but somehow she doesn't tear at the heartstrings.

I love her paying of the classical repertoire, she has an amazing purity of tone, on a par with Grumiaux and like him, she is also able to find a way through the 20th century repertoire. I don't have her Shostakovitch (although I do have a splendid DVD of her playing it in Japan), I must out that right.

Slightly off subject, her early unaccompanied Bach is superb, I wish she would record it all.

Mike