Concert Review
A performance of effortless elegance

By Melinda Bargreen
Seattle Times music critic

NANA WATANABE Violinist Hilary Hahn, 24.

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She makes it all look so simple.

Hilary Hahn stands up there on the stage, grasps her violin and bow, and pours out a tone like heavy cream: perfectly smooth, rich and elegant. That tone, so big and so steady, is one of the continuing wonders of a recital that never lapses from taste or from technique all evening. It all looks easy, but the smoothness of the playing also reveals the myriad of subtle interpretive details.

None of this was lost on Hahn's Monday-night audience, which accorded her and pianist Natalie Zhu a standing ovation at intermission following some Bach that could best be called sublime.

Seldom, if ever, do you hear violin playing on the level of Hahn's Mozart, and most particularly, her Bach. The 24-year-old violinist recorded the major Bach works for unaccompanied violin (career milestones for most mature players) while in her mid-teens. Now the solo Bach sonatas, such as the No. 3 in C Major on Monday night's program, are long-familiar turf.

Over the years, Hahn's Bach has only gotten stronger, both more refined and more decisive. Her Bach approaches perfection, and sometimes surpasses it.

The two Mozart sonatas with pianist Zhu (F Major, K.376, and E Minor, K.304) were all consummate elegance. That violin tone soared through the pure phrases, full of inflections and inspired phrasing, taking just a bit of time at the top of a phrase or following a decisive cadence.

Review Monday night, Benaroya Hall, Seattle

Zhu, a wonderfully adept partner, showed both strength and pliant support at the keyboard. She seems to anticipate Hahn's every breath, and she can echo the violinist's beautifully smooth legato (as she did in the second movement of the Mozart E Minor Sonata).

The only area where Hahn seemed less at home, on an interpretive basis, was in the program finale, the Fauré Sonata No. 1 in A Major. The playing was decisive, strong and beautifully shaded. But music lovers are accustomed to hearing this arch-romantic work performed with a full repertoire of slides and a generous helping of schmaltz, and Hahn's traversal seemed a little Olympian and detached. This is clearly her choice, but for this listener, it's a choice that works less well in this repertoire.

Hahn and Zhu responded to the final ovation with a Bach Siciliano and an eloquent, muted "Russian Maiden's Song" by Stravinsky. May this divine duo return often, with more Bach and Mozart by their side.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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