Hilary Hahn - Eclipse (2022)

Hilary Hahn’s most personal album to date was recorded immediately after lockdown. Featuring Dvořák’s and Ginastera’s Violin Concertos as well as Sarasate’s Carmen-Fantasy, the album was recorded with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada with the pieces chosen connected not only by the solo violin but by the idea that each composer maintained a connection to some musical-geographical center, despite long periods away from their homes.

For this new recording made immediately after the periods of confinement, the American violinist Hilary Hahn's offers a very original program as she appreciates them. Great surprise, the presence of the Violin Concerto, Op. 30 by Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983), a major Argentine composer of the 20th century, whose work is still too little defended, and yet, only masterpieces flamboyant and personal songs written for the orchestra, the piano, without forgetting the stage (Bormazo).

Ginastera is distinguished initially by his "sublimation" of the traditional South American heritage, with the incorporation, in the smallest corners of his writing, of Argentine dance rhythms and their so specific meters (tango, milonga, gato, etc.) , cast in a very inventive and absolutely personal orchestration. The Argentinian orchestra strikes instantly, and it will always maintain its powerful sonic singularity. In the early 1960s, Ginastera's style became more radical and arid. It increasingly incorporates elements specific to serial aesthetics. The Violin Concerto dates from the period (1963), when its language had already evolved; it is also surprising to note that his great concert scores (First Piano Concerto, First Cello Concerto) were written in the 1960s, a period of intense experimentation.

In three movements, very free in their form, the Violin Concerto remains a difficult work, both for the soloist and for the orchestra. It begins with a large cadenza for the soloist, then a series of six "studii", intended to exploit a peculiarity of violin playing (for chords, for thirds, etc.), as if Chopin or Paganini had thrown their own works a century later, by augmenting them with orchestral textures as abundant as they are variegated. The second movement, an Adagio per 22 solisti, fairly typical of Ginastera's writing for strings alone, brings a slight lull to the overall architecture, before a Scherzo itself divided into two parts, and which allows the Argentinian to close his work with one of the most virtuoso moments, a Perpetuum mobile, of which Hilary Hahn assumes the agitated and hallucinating tone. Brilliant moment of the disc.

Surprising then to hear Sarasate's Fantaisie-Carmen - a truly disturbing contrast, but which allows us to return to a more radiant 19th century that is also famous for the Violin Concerto by Antonin Dvořák, which the violinists of the 21st century, fortunately, interpret more and more often. Here, with Dvořák, Hahn and Orozco-Estrada are more sensitive to the fluid form of the work than to its rural or lyrical character.

Tracklist
1. Dvořák: Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53, B. 108 - I. Allegro ma non troppo (12:11)
2. Dvořák: Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53, B. 108 - II. Adagio ma non troppo (10:24)
3. Dvořák: Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53, B. 108 - III. Finale. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo (10:47)
4. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - Ia. Cadenza (5:23)
5. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - Ib. Studio I - Per gli accordi. Allegro (1:24)
6. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - Ic. Studio II - Per le terze. Allegretto (0:55)
7. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - Id. Studio III - Per gli altri intervalli. Lo stesso tempo (0:48)
8. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - Ie. Studio IV - Per l’arpeggiato. Lo stesso tempo (0:51)
9. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - If. Studio V - Per gli armonici. Andante (2:14)
10. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - Ig. Studio VI - Per i 24 quarti di tono. Larghissimo (1:12)
11. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - Ih. Coda. Maestoso (1:03)
12. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - II. Adagio per 22 solisti (9:45)
13. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - IIIa. Scherzo pianissimo. Sempre volante, misterioso e appena sensibile (4:28)
14. Ginastera: Violin Concerto, Op. 30 - IIIb. Perpetuum mobile. Agitato ed allucinante (1:56)
15. Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 - Introduction. Allegro moderato (3:13)
16. Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 - I. Moderato (3:15)
17. Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 - II. Lento assai (2:40)
18. Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 - III. Allegro moderato (2:09)
19. Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 - IV. Moderato (2:49)