Violinist Hilary Hahn has always been active on the internet. She started her online journal many years ago, before blogging became de rigeur. Now she has a channel on YouTube where she interviews her peers and takes questions from fans.

Check it out. Though caution is advised, as sometimes knowing the performer’s music is a sufficient dimension.

Here’s an interesting article at the New York Times on music and medicine. To paraphrase, some researchers (pseudoresearchers?) claim that certain musical motifs, deployed appropriately, can be beneficial in regulating conditions such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, etc.

I recall a related story (no link, unfortunately) in which someone claimed that the iambic hexameter of Greek poetry had beneficial health effects. But let’s be honest, the ancient Greeks had a lot more physical activity as well, climbing mountains and rowing triemes and running marathons.

The lineup of the Toronto Summer Music Festival has just been posted. It seems promising. Check it out!

The last few concerts and gatherings I’ve attended have shaken my faith in the concert hall. Not that I was much of a believer to begin with.

First, the observations:

• Miserable, drab locations with poor acoustics and minimal creature comforts hurt most small-scale, ‘intimate’ venues. Anything on the street, or in a mall is drowned out by the pointless cacophony of the background traffic; anything in a poorly designed church deadens the sounds before it even arrives. 
• Many performers seem, well, like they could use some more rehearsal time before appearing on stage. This is particularly true in any chamber or orchestral music. Aligning various musical visions takes time. 
• Lack of specificity in the programmes detract from the performance. Going to a Mozart concert to hear Random Piece X is not nearly as exciting as going to a Mozart concert to heard the Jupiter Symphony. 
• Live performers make mistakes. Part of this ties in with the practice time.

This boils down to value for time and money. If I spend $80 and two hours of time — which can never be returned — on any artist, I would like to get my money’s worth.  The live music experience is a luxury in the day of high-fidelity speakers and high-quality recordings. I don’t wish to spend my resources on missed notes and sulky performers and dubious interpretations when I could just as well be home, enjoying definitive recordings from the masters of the last eighty years. 

Furthermore, classical music has lost much of its cultural and social relevance. In the day of the great composers, classical music was the dance music (of the middle and upper classes). Operas and major concerts served not only as entertainment, but also as social gathering points. Much of that has been lost in the modern classical music establishment in North America. Most attendees are older couples, perhaps with some children, and these units do not seem to socialize with each other. Somehow classical music is no longer a group phenomenon, but something disconnected and increasingly hard to justify in the present-day world.

Here’s a link to a story in The Economist newspaper about the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death. It seems a little odd to celebrate a composer’s death (as compared to, say, the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth). Handel’s music wasn’t that bad.

Released 2009 by EMI music

The trumpet has largely played a supporting role in most classical music, blaring the occasional brassy fanfare. More often it is associated with jazz and brass bands. So when this recording by Alison Balsom appeared, my curiosity was piqued. How could a brass instrument with only three ‘buttons’ produce such round tender notes spanning a three-octave range?

And yet it does. Miss Balsom’s playing is dexterous and nuanced, and easily steals the show. Trills and octave jumps are surefooted, rhythms precisely delineated and dynamics entirely within context. The occasional intake of breath is audible, but does not detract from the record. The orchestra (the Deutsche Kammerphilharmoniker) is well balanced, enough to support but never so loud as to overwhelm, and is spare enough to reflect the early classical/baroque origins of these works. The technical aspects of the recording have resulted in a rich full sound, in which even the harpsichord can be heard in its rightful place.

The compositions are very typical of their time of composition, brightly glossed and easy to digest. Overall a highly satisfactory purchase.

Here’s a nice site that discusses how the trumpet makes all those notes with only three valves.

I picked up 2007 release from Deutsche Grammophon with great excitement earlier this year. As the first Polish native in 30 years to win the 2005 International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition, Mr. Blechacz caused great excitement, both in his native country and around the world. He followed this up with several well-reviewed recitals and signed a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon.

My initial impression was highly favourable. Mr. Blechacz shines in the more rapid passages and technically he sounds competent. However, somewhat to my own astonishment, towards the end of the disc, my attention wandered away from the music.

Repeat screenings have diminished my pleasure in this recording, and I have not made it through the entire disc at a single sitting. Largely this stems from a difference in my interpretation of Chopin’s works. To me, Chopin should be fluid and lyrical, at times passionate, vital or pensive. Percussive is not a word I associate with Chopin, and yet many of these Preludes have a grating, forced quality to them (Prelude 4, 9, 20, 22, 24).

The slower Preludes have a lugubrious character, the result of a muddiness from the lower registers (Prelude 2), and missing notes in some of the higher chords (Prelude 6). I found it difficult to distinguish the details of the chord progressions and lower voices, and in other areas, the music loses its forward impetus, bogging down in a haze of sound. I cannot tell if the piano and recording setup was to Mr. Blechacz’s satisfaction, but the sound and voicing is audibly uneven. I disagree with some of the tempi chosen, particularly 4, 6 and 15.

That said, many Preludes continue to enthrall (1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16), and there is much to appreciate in this new musician. Hopefully his interpretive skills will grow alongside the technical promise that this recording shows.

On a more practical note: I would download this CD from any vendor of your choosing (Deutsche Grammophon, iTunes, what have you), but the flaws in at least a third of the tracks prevent me from recommending a purchase of this in CD format. While it is worth the time to listen to these tracks, and is a fine debut effort, I do not consider this a definitive recording of the Preludes.

A new design is in progress and should be online soon, along with new posts. It is intended that the old site will be available as an archive.

Last night (Thursday, April 20, 2006) Hilary Hahn performed the second concert of her debut with the National Arts Center (NAC) Orchestra. She was in town to perform the Glazunov Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 82 along-side conductor Arild Remmereit also making his NAC debut (filling in for Pinchas Zukerman who is currently on leave). The orchestra seemed quite comfortable with Remmereit at the helm despite this being their second performance together. Southam Hall certainly wasn’t a full house but there was a good crowd on hand.

The Glazunov concerto is quite a demanding work for the soloist and while rarely included in the repertoire of many orchestras of late this performance was a pleasure. In all I am finding it difficult to classify Ms. Hahn’s interpretation of the work given the relative lack of reference points I have, though I would say that she took a rather conservative approach. Given the nature of this work on this night her approach was dead on.

There is something about her 1864 Vuillaume violin that produces what I find to be the most pleasing sound of any violin I have every heard in person. Its pure warm tone is truly amazing and holds perfectly into the higher registers of the instrument. That said, if there was anything lacking about the performance it was the presence of a more-pronounced-than-usual difference in the sound quality of the soloist’s violin to that of the string section.

The work was played straight through without a pause as expected. The moderato first movement was rhapsodic with both the orchestra and Ms. Hahn in perfect alignment. Remmereit was in solid control and maintained the orchestra at a complementary volume throughout. I love the romanticism of this piece and I found the associated lyricism conveyed in this performance to be quite moving - something that was enhanced by Hahn’s graceful movements. In this light I was struck with the way, during her breaks, she looked around at each section of the orchestra as they were highlighted in the score seemingly enjoying the music, and then resumed her playing quickly and with flawless timing.

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