| Hilary Hahn and Valentina Lisitsa – Charles Ives Four Sonatas (2011) |
Hilary Hahn and Valentina Lisitsa – Charles Ives Four Sonatas
Location: Lexington, Virginia, USA / Kiev, Ukraine ~ North Carolina, USA
Record Label: Deutsche Grammophone
Release date: October 11, 2011
Editorial Reviews:
From the Artist:
This disc contains all four of Ives's sonatas for violin and piano. The First Sonata is relatively conservative: dense but mostly tonal. The Second Sonata is split into three movements, each carrying an affective name: "Autumn","In the Barn", and "The Revival". The next sonata aims to "express the feeling and fervor - a fervor that was often more vociferous than religious - with which the hymns and revival tunes were sung at the Camp Meetings held extensively in New England in the 70's and 80's." The final sonata is lighter in mood and smaller in scope than the other three pieces.
Product Description:
Charles Ives's idiom is in Hilary Hahn's American blood - which her fierce and fitting playing shows. Her partnership with pianist Valentina Lisitsa models what two singular artists can accomplish in the interests of a common cause. Quirky, peculiar, rich with Charles Ives's idiosyncratic notion of melody, peppered with dissonance yet also logical - Ives's works for violin and piano turn familiar musical expressions upside down. They are an alternate universe of aesthetic pleasure.
Tracklist:
01 – Sonata No. 1 I. Andante – Allegro v
02 – Sonata No. 1 II. Largo cantabile
03 – Sonata No. 1 III. Allegro
04 – Sonata No. 2 I. Autumn (Adagio maes
05 – Sonata No. 2 II. In The Barn (Prest
06 – Sonata No. 2 III. The Revival (Larg
07 – Sonata No. 3 I. Adagio – Andante -
08 – Sonata No. 3 II. Allegro
10 – Sonata No. 4 Children’s Day At The
11 – Sonata No. 4 Children’s Day At The
12 – Sonata No. 4 Children’s Day At The
Charles Ives wrote many memorable works, but the first of his compositions I ever heard was his set of lyrical and evocative sonatas for violin and piano. Something about the way they juxtaposed melodies—some familiar, some not—with unexpected harmonies and rhythmic themes captivated me. At the outset I was particularly drawn to Ives’s Third Sonata, so when I was assembling my next recital program with my duo partner Valentina Lisitsa, that piece was a natural choice.
When we got our hands on the sheet music, we attempted to read through it. That effort quickly stalled. Ives’s music may sound at times transparent, but his notation turned out to be tremendously complex, filled with exacting markings for accents, articulations, disjointed dynamics, rhythmic intricacies, and changes of tempo. Clearly Ives knew what he wanted at every point—and he wanted to make sure his performers would know, too. Squinting together at the piano score, Valentina and I struggled to understand which notes went together with which, where phrases began and ended, and how to produce the expression Ives wanted while at the same time playing the notes he had written. It felt like we were deciphering a musical code that was only vaguely familiar. As we attended one by one to the details, however, the big picture of each movement and then of the whole sonata emerged as if of its own accord.
A piece of music eventually has to get out onstage, in front of audiences, for its performers to see its true colors. That time came for us in 2008, when we took Ives’s Third Sonata on tour around the world. The more we played it for various audiences, the more the details and refinements Ives wrote into his score became ingrained in our musical consciousness, and the freer we became to explore additional expressive possibilities. Since we were attempting different approaches with every concert, the piece became for us a shape-shifter: always evolving, ever intriguing. All along the way, audiences—for whom this century-old sonata was a new discovery—let us know that they would welcome more Ives.
So we returned the following season with a tour program that featured the remaining Ives sonatas (nos. 1, 2, and 4). Performing three of the four on one concert was terrific. We could sink into the similarities among them while having fun playing up the differences. What is remarkable about Ives’s writing from an interpretive perspective is the sense it gives that something tangible and interesting is always happening, or has just happened, or is about to happen. That may seem inconsequential, but, for a performer, that makes the music a pleasure to play night after night: expression can take any number of turns at any given moment.
Late in that second tour, realizing how attached we had become to these four sonatas, Valentina and I began planning this recording. Ultimately, in June 2010, we reconvened in upstate New York for four days to immerse ourselves in the musical world Ives had created. Recording sessions, monomaniacally focused, have the power to drain one’s enthusiasm for even the most touching and carefully crafted pieces. But for us, these sonatas never flagged. Their brooding, plotted beauty, their wit, their quicksilver modernity, and the dreams they evoke of a changing time and place, drew us through every hour. As we release this album, Valentina and I hope that the many virtues of the Ives sonatas will come through clear and heartfelt, and that listeners will join us in our affection for these rich and original pieces for violin and piano. (Hilary Hahn 9/2011)
Tracklist:
Charles Ives (1874 - 1954)
Sonata for Violin and Piano No.1
01. 1. Andante - Allegro vivace [6:08]
02. 2. Largo cantabile [5:56]
03. 3. Allegro [8:06]
Sonata for Violin and Piano No.2
04. 1. Autumn. Adagio maestoso - Allegro moderato [5:10]
05. 2. In the Barn. Presto - Allegro moderato [4:03]
06. 3. The Revival. Largo - Allegretto [3:18]
Sonata for Violin and Piano No.3
07. 1. Adagio (Verse I) - Andante (Verse II) - Allegretto (Verse III) - Adagio (Last Verse) [12:21]
08. 2. Allegro [3:30]
09. 3. Adagio (Cantabile) - Andante con spirito [8:02]
Sonata for Violin and Piano No.4 "Children's Day At The Camp Meeting"
10. 1. Allegro [2:04]
11. 2. Largo - Allegro (con slugarocko) [4:50]
12. 3. Allegro [1:43]
Hilary Hahn, violin
Valentina Lisitsa, piano
2011 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg
1 CD DDD
477 9435
Taken from: http://orchestralworks.blogspot.com/2011/10/hilary-hahn-valentina-lisitsa-charles.html
Website Valentina: http://www.valentinalisitsa.com/
HILARY HAHN – A BIOGRAPHICAL TIMELINE
“Hilary Hahn is a formidable musician. She astonishes audiences in performance after performance and recording after recording with her superb technical prowess, refined good taste and intuitive musical understanding . . . she is able instinctively to combine a highly assured virtuoso ability with a deeply thoughtful engagement with the score . . . this technically awe-inspiring, wonderfully imaginative violinist . . .”
Gramophone Awards Issue, London, November 2008
Hilary Hahn was born in Lexington, Virginia, USA, and moved to Baltimore in 1983, where she had her first violin lessons. In 1985, she began five years of study with Klara Berkovich who had taught at the Leningrad School for the Musically Gifted for 25 years before emigrating to Baltimore. In 1990, she entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia to study with 83-year-old Jascha Brodsky, the last surviving student of Eugène Ysaÿe. Alongside her solo work and a deep interest in chamber music, she has also collaborated with non-classical musicians and can be heard as featured soloist on the soundtrack of M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Village, on the album Worlds Apart by Austin alt-rockers . . . And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, and on singer-songwriter-guitarist Tom Brosseau’s latest album Grand Forks.
Hilary Hahn plays on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin from 1864.
1991 Major orchestra debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in December
1992 Begins full-time undergraduate studies at Curtis in music, liberal arts and foreign languages. Appears at the Skaneateles Chamber Music Festival for the first time
1993 European orchestral debut in Hungary with the Budapest Festival Orchestra
1994 Debuts with leading American orchestras, including the Cleveland, New York Phil¬harmonic and Pittsburgh Symphony. European chamber-music debut in France at the Festival of Sully-sur-Loire, with future recital partner Natalie Zhu
1995 Spends the first summer (of four) studying and performing chamber music at the Marlboro Music Festival in the USA. German orchestral debut with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
1996 First recording featuring solo Sonatas and Partitas by J. S. Bach is released. Carne¬gie Hall debut. Performs in Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York
1998 Recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Bernstein’s Serenade with the Bal¬timore Symphony under David Zinman is nominated for a Grammy®, and crowned with a Diapason d’or and Echo Award
1999 Graduates from the Curtis Institute of Music with a bachelor’s degree. Orchestral debuts with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony. Performs and records the Violin Concerto written for and dedicated to her by Edgar Meyer
2000 Her recording of concertos by Barber and Meyer wins the German Record Critics’ Prize and Cannes Classical Award. BBC Proms debut at the “Last Night” in London’s Royal Albert Hall. Tours Japan with the Berliner Philharmoniker
2002 Signs an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and makes her first recording for the Yellow Label of four concertos by J. S. Bach with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Kahane, which is released to wide critical acclaim in 2003
2004 Release of Elgar’s Violin Concerto and Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending with Sir Colin Davis conducting the London Symphony Orchestra (German Record Critics’ Prize 2004). Concert appearances include the New York and Rotterdam Philharmonics and the Cincinnati, Toronto, NDR (Hamburg) and New Zealand Symphony orchestras. US and Euro¬pean recital tours with pianist Natalie Zhu
2005 Recital tours with Natalie Zhu of the US, Europe and Far East; European tour with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano “Giuseppe Verdi” plus concert appearances including the Philadelphia and St. Paul Chamber orchestras, the Swe¬dish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Russian National Phil¬harmonic Orchestra. Her release of Mozart Violin Sonatas with Natalie Zhu opens at no. 7 on the classical Billboard charts and also makes the German pop charts
2006 Engagements include the Los Angeles Phil¬harmonic (Hollywood Bowl), the San Francisco, BBC and Montreal Symphony orchestras, and the Cologne and Frankfurt Symphony orchestras. Festival appearances in¬clude Aspen, Barbican (Mostly Mozart), Mont¬pellier, Verbier and Tanglewood. Release of violin concertos by Paganini and Spohr with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Eiji Oue
2007 Concerts in North America with the Cleve¬land Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Chicago and the Montreal Symphony Orchestras. Concerts in Europe with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic. She performs with singer Josh Ritter at the Verbier, Aspen and Ravinia festivals. A special highlight of the year is her appearance with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel in a concert at the Vatican to celebrate the 80th birthday of Pope Benedikt XVI, which is also televised live in Italy and throughout much of Europe. DVD release: “Hilary Hahn – A Portrait” gives a personal account of the violinist’s world
2008 Begins the year on tour in Europe with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. March sees her in Japan with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Numerous concerts with leading US orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington. She appears in Norway with the Bergen Philharmonic and in Great Britain with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. European recital tour and appearances with singer Josh Ritter in the USA. Concerts of Bach in Germany, with Christine Schäfer and Matthias Goerne. Her recording of violin concertos by Sibelius and Schoenberg with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen brings Hilary Hahn a Grammy® for the year’s “Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra)”. She is named Classic FM Gramophone “Artist of the Year”
2009 Gives the world premiere (plus concerts throughout the US and in Lucerne) of Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto, co-commissioned for her by the Indianapolis, Toronto and Baltimore symphonies and the Curtis Institute of Music. Concerts include Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with the Wiener Symphoniker, the Glazunov Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 5 with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Extensive recital tour with pianist Valentina Lisitsa to Japan, South America, the US and throughout Europe. Scheduled for release later in the year is an album of Bach for violin and voice: a musical collaboration with Christine Schäfer and Matthias Goerne featuring selections from oratorios and cantatas
3/2009
This biography was provided by the artist or their representative.
Lisitsa (was born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1973) has performed in various venues around the world, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the Musikverein. Recently, she has been the pianist in recital engagements collaborating with violinist Hilary Hahn. Many of Lisitsa's performances, including Frédéric Chopin's Op. 10 and Op. 25 Etudes and Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata, can be viewed on YouTube.
English: Pianist Valentina Lisitsa during an interview in Leiden, Netherlands
Deutsch: Pianistin Valentina Lisitsa während eines Interviews in Leiden, Holland
Author: Michael von Aichberger
Date: 22 May 2010
