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A student of the last student of Ysaÿe, American violinist Hilary Hahn has played Bach's solo violin music since she was nine, and inaugurated her recording career seven years later with a recording of half the cycle of six, in 1997. That recording rightly won acclaim with its flawless technique and Apollonian lines straight out of the best of the French violin school. Uniquely, she has returned to complete the set 21 years later, and the results are marvelous. It's sometimes hard to pin down the ways in which Hahn's style has changed, but it has to do with a kind of inner relaxation, with a willingness to let the meter vary a bit and pick it up again in the longer line. The flawless tone is still there, but it's not so much an end in itself. It's not an accident that some of the graphics picture Hahn smiling, nor that her quite relevant notes to the album detail the long creative process that went into making it. Sample anywhere, but you could try the very beginning, the first movement of the Sonata for solo violin No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001, where Hahn takes just a bit of time, draws you in, and lets the rest of the movement flow from there. Decca's engineers do excellent work in a Bard College auditorium that one might not have picked as a venue for this. A superb release from one of the preeminent violinists of our time.
Hilary Hahn
Hilary Hahn Plays Bach: Sonatas 1 & 2; Partita 1
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AllMusic Review by James Manheim
Track Listing
| Title/Composer | Performer | Time | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sonata No. 1 in G Minor BWV 1001 | ||||||
| 1 | 4:44 | |||||
| 2 | 5:25 | |||||
| 3 | 3:31 | |||||
| 4 | 3:29 | |||||
| Partita No. 1 in B Minor BWV 1002 | ||||||
| 5 | 7:21 | |||||
| 6 | 4:12 | |||||
| 7 | 3:41 | |||||
| 8 | 3:30 | |||||
| 9 | 4:01 | |||||
| 10 | 3:34 | |||||
| 11 | 3:26 | |||||
| 12 | 3:22 | |||||
| Sonata No. 2 in A Minor BWV 1003 | ||||||
| 13 | 4:44 | |||||
| 14 | 8:07 | |||||
| 15 | 6:32 | |||||
| 16 | 5:49 | |||||
