HILARY HAHN TACKLES DEMANDING REPERTORY
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Feb. 20-27,  2011
                                                                  Vol. 13, No. 67
              OK, we won’t harp on the attire, merely heap praise on the recital of violinist Hilary Hahn, already one of the reigning violinists barely in her early 30s. She brought out an unusual program Feb. 19 at the Herbst Theatre and still swept the listeners off their feet. 
            Two of the five composers on the slate---Ives and Antheil---were decidedly unorthodox 20th-century rebels. Another piece was derivative, leaping back to baroque roots. That left major touchstones of Bach and Beethoven, where her musicianship came emphatically to the fore.
            At 31, Hahn looks 18. She could easily pass for those decorative organpipe-curls Southern belles in romantic 1930s movies. But that’s deceptive (Baltimore doesn’t qualify as Southern).  She is a formidable interpreter, playing it all seamlessly from memory, and mastering highly virtuosic moments in both the Antheil Sonata No. 1 (1923) finale and the unaccompanied Bach Partita No. 1. She is also fearless: Unlike many another artist, she does not insist that the piano lid be lowered (to “short peg”), not even with a pianist of strong personality like the Ukranian Valentina Lisitsa. Consequently, the resultant music is made by a true duo.
             The Beethoven “Spring” Sonata, Op. 24 of 1801 was effective, nuanced, but devoid of surprises. It was Beethoven at his most mellow, you’d say even Schubertian were it not for the abrupt outbursts and cosmic shifts.
            But for real cosmic shifts, no one tops George Antheil, the self-styled “bad boy of music,” who was notorious for stunts like inserting fire sirens in his pieces. This rebel with a cause wrote a schizophrenic work, freely bringing in unprovoked and unexpected changes of mood, tempo and sequence, and percussive segments clearly influenced by Bartok and Prokofiev, plus some reminiscences of Stravinsky’s “Histoire du Soldat.” He ends with a wild sort of nomads’ fire dance, uninhibited and very nearly unplayable.
            This was George being thoroughly outré in putting this together for his 1923 world premiere in Paris.
            I love Charles Ives’ iconoclasm; the lead-in of his Violin Sonata No. 4 sounds as though one of the two musicians is playing in the wrong key. He moves in the direction of Debussy’s nebulousness, goes off into rambucvtious clangors, and finishes with the Americana hymn “Gather at the River” as the piece trails off, as if the last page of the score is missing.
            Of course Hahn was at the piunnacle of her artistry in Bach’s Partita No. 1 for unaccompanied violin, bring countless dynamic shades and nuances into a timeless score, patterned after the older dance suites, with almost no markings save the notes themselves. Her dexteral agility and occasional sheer velocity is enviable.  Some 19 minutes of music, followed by minutes of audience bliss, cut short by Hahn’s abrupt bows and departures.
            The elfin Baltimorean star played the whole program by memory. Her appearance was under auspices of San Francisco Performances, which had discovered her early and spotlighted her in recital here at the age of only 21.
            Pianist Lisitsa provided a strong keyboard personality to complement Hahn.
            HAHNOTES---Recently named artist of the year by the respected British magazine Gramophone, Hahn epitomizes the 21st-century young musician, feeding her own web site, plus a presence on Twitter, plus entries on a YouTube channel she produces. In her spare time, she does classical-music blog interviews.
            You wonder how she ever finds the time for all the practice.
            THE ATTIRE---A gold strapless ball gown, with designs that may or may not be mysterious deep-sea creatures or space junk. Yes, it was a distraction!
                Violinist Hilary Hahn in recital Feb. 19, Herbst Theatre,  San Francisco, under auspices of San Francisco Performances. For info on SFP: (415) 392-2545, or go online.

        ©D. Rane Danubian 2011
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        D. Rane Danubian has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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