Friday 5 November 2010

Bach - Violin Concerto 2 [Hahn/Kahane-Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra]

Again this is the second time this Concerto has appeared in my Blog [16th January 2010], and what a truly great disc it is, so far it's Hilary Hahn's best disc of music, presented visually as well as sonically in a wonderful way, with a tremendously gorgeous front cover [by Kassakara], and an extensive booklet with a lot of notes, this disc now breaks into my top 50 all time discs, and i'm sure in a few years it will hit the top 10, Hilary Hahn was 22 when she made this recording.

I so much enjoyed the first movement of this work, it has exuberance aplenty, with a truly memorable tune, instantly recognizable, like the Baroque version of the start of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, right at the start there's this high violin tessitura outburst [0:08+], i just love this, up we go into the stratosphere, and Bach keeps us there for a lovely while, plus the phrase comes back again and again [0:55+ & 1:35+], later there's a minor version of the opening [2:35-3:32], with some excellent varied work by Hahn, including another high tessitura outburst [2:56+], but this time with some skillful minor variations, the opening eventually returns [4:52+] to great effect, and there's even a nice abrupt ending, very satisfying indeed.

Here's Julia Fischer playing the first movement on YouTube.