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Stories   >   Hilary Hahn's command on Eugene Ysaye: Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, op. 27 is muscular and precise / Wild Mercury Rhythm

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Hilary Hahn's command on Eugene Ysaye: Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, op. 27 is muscular and precise / Wild Mercury Rhythm

Posted: October 29, 2023

Three-time GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn has released her latest album with Deutsche Grammophon: a recording of Eugène Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, op. 27. The 2-LP gatefold vinyl edition, and in digital formats including a Dolby Atmos version features six sonatas composed beginning in 1923 and are considered among the supreme feats of technical virtuosity in the violin repertoire. Hahn’s interpretations, recorded last fall in the lead-up to this year’s centenary, see her come full circle as a direct musical descendant of Ysaÿe himself. 

“Just as Eugène Ysaÿe was inspired by Bach to write these six sonatas—and in doing so set a crucial milestone in the evolution of the violin—so too am I inspired by Ysaÿe to continually grow as an artist, to pour all of myself into this music and to commit myself fully to the pieces appearing on this recording,” says Hahn. “The sounds you hear aren’t just the product of the notes on the page, but of a centuries-long artistic lineage that has led me to this moment in time—me, standing on my own two feet with just my two hands, a violin, a bow, and four strings.”

A gifted violinist, conductor, and composer, Eugène Ysaÿe is widely considered to be the first modern violinist. As a performer, he embraced and defined the techniques of his day, revolutionizing the ways in which technical prowess and expressiveness could enhance one another without compromise; his mastery of rubato alone put him leaps and bounds ahead of other violinists of his time. A champion of new music, Ysaÿe received dedications from luminaries such as Franck, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, and Chausson. He was also an in-demand interpreter of repertoire works, breathing new life into works from the Classical and Early-Romantic era.

Wild Mercury Rhythm's C. MICHAEL BAILEY writes…..And then, all of a sudden, Belgian violinist Eugéne Ysaÿe is a thing again.  This year has already seen performances of the Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, op. 27, by Daniel Matejca on Supraphon and Elena Denisova on TYXART.  Storming in on Deutsche Grammophon is Hilary Hahn.  With regards to Ysaÿe, Hahn has solid bona fides having been a pupil of Jascha Brodsky, who had been a student of Ysaÿe.

Ysaÿe (1858-1931) was a Belgian violinist and composer, declared by fellow violinist Nathan Milstein as the “Tsar of the Violin.”  An important violin instructor, Ysaÿe dedicated each of his six violin sonatas to a violinist of the next generation.  The first four were written for practicing virtuosos of the day – Joseph Szigeti (No. 1), Jacques Thibaud (No. 2), Georges Enescu (No. 3), and Fritz Kreisler (No. 4) – while the last two were dedicated to upstarts close to Ysaÿe: his pupil Matthieu Crickboom (No.5) and the tragic Manuel Quiroga (No. 6).

These are compositions that require, no, demand bravura performances. Clothed in this bravura mandate are technical dictates that require the performing violinist to scale from the dark mirth of the second sonata’s “Obsession. Prèlude” (teased open with the "Preludio" from Bach's Partita in E major) to the precise and manic genius of Sonata No. 3 “Ballade.”  Hahn is more than equal to the challenge, having studied these pieces for most of her life.  Six Sonatas is the first integrated recording by a single composer the violinist has recorded since the release of her 2019 recording of 6 Partitas by Anton Garcia Abril (Decca).

Hahn’s command is muscular and precise.  Her performance of the Enescu sonata (No. 3) captures the concentrated Romantic character of all of the sonatas, radiating from double and triple stops of the first section into the lyric main section, seasoned with Paganini’s “Caprices” before the stunning virtuoso coda.  This is a breathtaking performance that is not merely scintillating but devastatingly explosive.

A dozen lifetimes separate the coda of Sonata No. 3 from the Allemande of the Kreisler (No. 4) sonata, which Hahn plays with haunting beauty tempered with uncertain anxiety.  These are not simply show pieces to Hahn -- just one more Sarasate “Zigeunerweisen” -- no.  These pieces are as close as skin to the violinist and she sounds reluctant to share them with others.

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