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Stories   >   Hilary Hahn delivers gleaming performance of Ysaye sonatas on new Deutsche Grammophon album / The Classical Review

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Hilary Hahn delivers gleaming performance of Ysaye sonatas on new Deutsche Grammophon album / The Classical Review

Posted: August 9, 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. Released July 14 on CD, a 2-LP gatefold vinyl edition, and in digital formats including a Dolby Atmos version, these six sonatas, composed beginning in 1923, are 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.


The Classical Review's Lawrence A. Johnson writes….Inspired by hearing Joseph Szigeti perform a solo Bach sonata, Eugène Ysaÿe wrote his Six Solo Violin Sonatas in 1923. The Belgian violinist-composer dedicated each sonata to a different violinist colleague, incorporating something of their signature musical personality into each work. While Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3 are occasionally heard, the others remain infrequently performed.

Released on the centennial anniversary of these works, Hilary Hahn’s new recording for the venerable yellow label offers a welcome modern set of Ysaÿe’s complete Op. 27. The historically minded American violinist brings characteristic gleam and communicative warmth to this offbeat repertoire, while conveying the individual qualities of each of these quirky, engaging works. In the Sonata No. 1 (for Szigeti), Hahn, a supreme Bach player, spaciously draws out the Bachian inspiration and she underlines the modernist elements throughout—as with 20th-century Vienna in No. 1 and the stately brooding of the “Malinconia” movement of No. 2 (for Jacques Thibaud).

The Sonata No. 3 “Ballade” (for George Enescu) is arguably the finest work of the set, a concise single movement of mercurial character. Hahn points up the contrasts in a taut, concentrated reading that also conveys the restless, rhapsodic essence. Hahn also sensitively explores the impressionistic mystery in the “L’Aurore” section of Sonata No. 5.

While Ysaÿe’s substantive sonatas are not traditional fiddle showpieces, these are intensely demanding works and Hahn handles all the fireworks and technical challenges with bracing virtuosity and style.

With DG bestowing a luxuriant richness on her instrument, Hilary Hahn’s new disc provides outstanding performances of Ysaÿe’s sonatas as well as a timely opportunity to rediscover some compelling violin repertoire that is still less known than it deserves to be.
 

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