Review Hilary Hahn – Ysaÿe: Sonata for Solo Violin

The six sonatas composed by Eugene Ysay in 1924, together with Bach’s sonatas and partitas, to which they are explicitly referred, are considered the pinnacle of solo violin literature. Ysaÿe dedicated each of the six sonatas to a violinist of his time, keeping in mind his idiosyncrasies – the sixth sonata, dedicated to the Spaniard Manuel Quiroga, ends with a Habanera. There are many good recordings of this course from Vengerov to Fischer to Zehetmair, but this new entry should surpass all of its predecessors. On the one hand, this is due to the intensity with which Hilary Hann feels and caters to diverse musical personalities, but above all to the incredible ease with which she traverses daunting difficulties, so to speak: how she shapes individual voices into polyphonic syllables. As if several violins were playing, hardly more out of this world.

Ysaÿe: Sonatas for Solo Violin Ref. 27/1-6

Hilary Hahn (violin)
German gramophone

Hilary Hahn

Her ancestors are from Germany, she was born in the USA, and she gained her first experience of playing the violin at the age of three, first through the Russian school and then through the Franco-Belgian school: Hilary Hahn was only ten years old when… More