This disc asks more
questions than it answers. Why did Hilary
Hahn record the Elgar concerto at this
stage of her career? Why did Deutsche
Grammophon release this disc? What did
Sir Colin Davis, a notable, though not
great, Elgarian make of his young soloist?
Whatever happened to Hilary Hahn’s famed
interest in the techniques of the past
masters of her chosen instrument? In
short, this is a deplorable disc that,
even after two intensive hearings, this
reviewer has found a quite fruitless
musical experience. Not writing about
it may have been a kinder gesture but
some kind of review is necessary, if
only to steer buyers away from a disastrous
purchase.
What does most injury
to this performance is the sheer lack
of empathy the soloist has with Elgar’s
idiom, and that is death in any performance.
After the LSO’s portentous opening to
the work Hahn enters with limply defined
tone and half-hearted expression. What
should be a moment of magical wonder
(identical almost to the soloists first
entry in Beethoven’s concerto) passes
as nondescript ambivalence. Wiry tone
defaces her performance here and throughout
the work; she literally scratches at
the surface of this works treasures.
One was tempted at first to blame the
recording – quite the opposite of Perlman,
who is often too close to the microphone,
Hahn seems to be a transatlantic liner
away from one – but in fact it is clear
and spacious with a decent enough acoustic
(Abbey Road, Studio One.) The clarity
of the LSO’s own phrasing is amply defined,
so why not the soloist’s?
One is almost tempted
to say that this performance sounds
of a period other than Elgar’s or our
own. At times, her Elgar sounds uncannily
like Berlioz. Menuhin, in a still fabulous
recording of the work, is rich with
tone and plays with a large heart on
his sleeve. Hahn’s remains discreetly
buried somewhere beneath her ribcage.
Moreover, he can be white hot in the
intensity of his playing – his cadenza
is a miracle of tension and time; what
defines his playing as markedly superior
to Hahn’s (even if, as a whole, his
technique is not without its flaws)
is that he makes his instrument sing
in one of Elgar’s most vocal orchestral
outpourings. It is Hahn’s lack of vibrato
and her complete dismissal of portamento
that makes her sound so ungratifying,
where Menuhin is a master of both. There
is no bloom or blossom to her instrument
– even in the Andante, with Elgar at
his most lyrical, she crushes emotiveness
as if trampling through the most serene
flower garden. Because of this, the
movement that most comes apart in her
hands, and resembles a jigsaw puzzle
thrown randomly together (i.e. the picture
is never quite complete), is the emotional
core of the work, the final movement.
The cadenza’s instilled inwardness is
but gloss in Hahn’s performance, wilfully
distorted by fluctuations of tempi and
little more than a vehicle for virtuosity
she has little need to display. Elgar
described it as waking from a dream;
here we are awaking from nothing quite
so enchanting as that.
Vaughan Williams’ evergreen,
though vapid, Lark soars serenely, though
again there is something about the quality
of Hahn’s spindly tone that places barbed-wire
like knots in the otherwise seamless
spirals of the composer’s solo writing.
She feels quite lost in this orchestral
sky.
So back to my questions
which began the review, though answered
in a different order. Hahn would have
been wise to have taken on board the
sound qualities of the violinists of
the past. She has often spoken of them.
The richness of tone of a Kreisler or
an Elman would have repaid handsomely
in the Elgar, as would the more stratospherically
and figurative sound of Marie Hall in
the Vaughan Williams. A failure to incorporate
the past into her performances is one
reason (among many) why this recording,
made now at a comparatively early stage
in her career, is so conspicuously lacking
the qualities both works need. One can
only suspect that Colin Davis himself
is not happy with the results (I would
have been) – at least from his soloist.
His orchestra, as always, plays magnificently
for him, though that is no reason to
hear this disc. DG have to reflect on
whether they think Hahn is the correct
player on their books for works such
as this. They must now find it galling
that Gil Shaham, dismissed by the label
some years ago, and one of today’s best
exponents of the Elgar concerto, is
no longer available to record it for
them. One look at the front cover of
the booklet to this release – and the
blurred images inside of their soloist
looking more like a diva than a violin
player – suggests that musical substance
is lacking. Elgar suffers irrevocably
because of that.
Marc Bridle
Hilary Hahn, violin
[66’10]
