Concerto Award Hilary Hahn
Eclipse
Works by Dvořák, Ginastera & Sarasate Hilary Hahn (violin); Frankfurt Radio Symphony/andrés Orozco-estrada Deutsche Grammophon 486 2383
‘It’s really, I think, an allegory of life,’ says Hilary Hahn of Ginastera’s Violin Concerto; ‘by not being shy to grapple with the range of human experience emotionally, he also allows us to be in touch with things we might be hiding within ourselves.’
Composed in 1963 for Ruggiero Ricci, famous for playing Paganini’s virtuosic Caprices – a fragment of which is quoted by Ginastera (‘He’s saying “hi” to Ruggiero in that moment,’ says Hahn) – the Concerto makes use of every violin technique known at that time, and then adds some. Because of this, and the remarkable demands Ginastera makes on the orchestra (the second movement, she explains, ‘is for 22 soloists – that is, all the orchestra’s principal players and the violin soloist’) the work was largely neglected after its premiere. Hahn has now become its principal champion and has revealed its remarkable beauty.
Clearly the work needed a very special orchestra, and Hahn knew from long collaborative experience that Andrés Orozco-estrada and the musicians of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony would be perfect partners: ‘I knew Andrés would be able to structure the rehearsals and the performance in such a way that the music would spring to life for the Ginastera.’ Their shared love for Dvořák’s songful Concerto helped determine part of the rest of the programme, which Hahn chose to end with Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy.
All these pieces, she feels, explore and celebrate a sense of community – one all the more precious since Covid. ‘We’re all carrying these experiences with us whether from a lockdown or from life. And to have an audience together in a physical space again and to know that they are also virtually connected in ways that we weren’t before – I’ve noticed there’s an emotional rawness to the performance experience that is really, really special.’