This disc offers an inspired choice of repertoire, with performances to match. Paganini and Spohr were the two most famous violin soloists of their day, yet their music couldn’t be more different. The former’s First Violin Concerto is comparatively well known: a brilliant, highly entertaining essay in bel canto stylistics applied to the solo violin. Spohr’s Eighth Concerto, “In the Manner of a Vocal Scena”, is no less indebted to the Italian school, but it seems to have fallen out of the repertoire. More’s the pity, because it’s extremely pretty and very enjoyable, even if its emotional range is typically limited and its surface brilliance is perhaps a bit subdued for modern tastes.
In any case, the two works go very well together, and Hilary Hahn plays them with sovereign ease and intelligence. In the Paganini she executes the fireworks in the quick outer movements with complete confidence. The Spohr is loosely divided into passages of “recitative” and “aria” while still falling into three linked movements–but these are not “parlando” instrumental recitatives (as at the opening of the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth, for example), but rather “accompagnati”. The melodic line is arioso, full of vocal ornamentation and rhetorical emphasis. Hahn certainly gets the point. She characterizes both kinds of music with plenty of extravert emotion and with a nice, rich vibrato. Excellently balanced sound and terrific accompaniments complete this very welcome picture. A joy!
