Augustin Hadelich is now a musical household name, but I remember when knowing and loving his musicianship was like being in on a special secret. One of the great joys for me during the early years of Augustin Hadelich's career as an adult musician (I was, unfortunately, not aware at the time of the career he had as a child) was telling everyone I knew about him. Writing about Augustin Hadelich's recordings for the American Record Guide was a great pleasure.
HAYDN: Violin Concertos 1, 3, 4
Augustin Hadelich, v; Cologne Chamber Orchestra/Helmut Muller-Bruhl
Naxos 8.570483 60 minutes
It would be very easy to love Augustin Hadelich’s violin playing simply for his crystalline technical facility or his always-interesting singing sound, but I am partial to his long and deep sense of phrase, his sensual relationship to the pitches that really ring on his instrument, and his fresh approach to Haydn. There is something about his playing that excites my “inner violinist” (something that always seems to be at odds from my “outer violinist”) in a way that no other violinist excites it. There is something unique about Hadelich’s playing: perhaps a purity of intent, or a direct line to what is essential in music. It is difficult to describe, but it is easy to recognize.
He is able to let phrases soar in the air, making great and graceful arcs, and then lets them land lightly, yet decisively. Hearing him play Haydn makes me happy; not a giddy kind of happy, but a balanced kind of happy. While the music is playing, I have a feeling that all is right with the world.
This recording is one of his prizes for winning the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Another prize is the use for four years of the ex-Gingold Stradivari violin, the instrument that he plays on this recording. Each component of the trio of Haydn, Hadelich, and Stradivari brings out the best in the others, and Hadelich’s stunningly-beautiful cadenzas reflect (and sometimes even improve upon) the best moments in these concertos.
I am impressed that he chose these three Haydn Concertos for his Naxos recording. Even though they are extremely difficult to play, they do not appear to the non-violinist to be virtuosic pieces. Aside from the First Concerto in C, these works are not very popular pieces in the solo violin literature. Violinists and people who play with violinists know that they all require a tremendous amount of musicianship and technical strength to play well, and they also demand an excellent accompanying orchestra, which Hadelich has in Helmut Muller-Bruhl and the Cologne Chamber Orchestra.
I know that after hearing this recording you will agree with me that the future of great violin playing is safe and very bright in Augustin Hadelich’s 24-year-old hands.
September/October 2008
* * *
TELEMANN: Twelve Fantasies for Solo Violin
Augustin Hadelich
Naxos 8.570563 65 minutes
I admit that I was was rather surprised at first to see these Telemann Fantasies as Augustin Hadelich's choice for his second Naxos recording, one of the prizes given to him for winning the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. I had heard of these pieces, but, like a lot of people (and even a lot of violinists) had never heard all twelve of them played end to end. Because these Fantasies are mainly considered student works (by those who consider them at all), they are performed more often (if they are performed at all) by students than by professional violinists. If they are performed by professional violinists, the violinists are often early music specialists who play them on baroque period instruments.
Hadelich's Telemann is brilliant, intelligent, historically informed, and definitely modern. He offers these pieces as works of serious musical substance, shattering the long-held prejudice that Telemann must have been a a second-rate composer because he wrote so much music that is playable by people with an amateur's level of technique.
Telemann, who wrote these Fantasies in 1735, reached southward towards Italy for some of his influences. There are movements in these pieces that sound a lot like Corelli, particularly the Gigue of the Fourth Fantasie, which gives the solo violin its own accompanying bass line. Many movements of these pieces are written in a German rhetorical style, some use what sounds like a lot of counterpoint, and some exploit the violin's virtuosic qualities. No two are alike, though parts of some sound a bit like Telemann's Twelve Fantasies for solo flute that were written a couple of years earlier.
These pieces have obviously not enjoyed the place in the solo violin literature held by Bach, but they do offer a really attractive alternative to Bach. I ordered the sheet music immediately after my first hearing of this recording. I hope it arrives soon.
Perhaps Hadelich's background as a German-speaking person growing up in Italy adds to his deep understanding of the German-Italian nature of these pieces. Whatever the reason, this recording is a pleasure to listen to this wonderful music and stunningly-beautiful violin playing again and again.
July/August 2009
* * *
Echoes of Paris
DEBUSSY: Violin Sonata; POULENC: Violin Sonata; STRAVINSKY: Suite after Themes, Fragments and Pieces by Giambattista Pergolesi; PROKOFIEV: Violin Sonata 2
Augustin Hadelich, v; Robert Kulek, p
Avie 2216 70 minutes
There are many excellent young violinists around, but I can only think of a few young violinists who have the creative imagination to make well-worn pieces of the standard violin literature sound as fresh and as sturdy as Augustin Hadelich. He brings a great deal of intelligence, an uncompromising dedication to accuracy and beauty of sound, and a hearty dose of emotional idealism to his readings of the 20th century music on this recording.
He and Kulek present the Poulenc as a deeply serious piece (which it is), and seem to draw on images from Poulenc's other serious pieces (the emotional weight of Dialogues of the Carmelites comes to mind). In this reading of the Prokofiev, a piece originally written for flute and piano, Hadelich adds a surprising array of flute-like colors and articulations; something I have never heard any violinist do before. His tempo choices allow the piece to flow lightly forward, particularly in III, and he and Kulek keep II and IV very light and crispy.
These musicians play the Debussy Sonata as one continuous and remarkable 13-minute phrase, and they play Paul Kochanski's 1925 violin and piano transcription of Stravinsky's Pulcinella, the piece known (from Samuel Duskin's more popular 1932 transcription) as "Suite Italienne". The Kochanski version is much more colorful and much more difficult to play than the Dushkin, but the violinistic technical difficulties in this transcription all become expressive devices in Hadelich's hands. The microphones pick up the full range of bold and fragile nuances that come from the 1683 Ex-Gingold Stradivarius that Hadelich used until September of 2010.
May/June 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment