4th Vieuxtemps in Hannover with Hilary Hahn

March 16, 2016, 9:36 AM · A violin friend had looked at the Hilary Hahn website and had seen that in Germany in Hanover and Braunschweig the 4th violin concerto by Vieuxtemps she played there. I have played the 5th violin concerto with an amateur orchestra in Wassenaar. I also had seen in the concerthall 4 times the 5th, with 3 times at the National Competition in the final and once with a youth orchestra. 2nd violin concerto I have heard 8 times in the 1st round of the Vieuxtemps Competition with piano in Verviers, Belgium, Europe. For the 2nd violin concerto I had to cross the border and we had to travel 400 km to Germany to hear the 4th if I wanted to hear the piece once in a concert in my life.

A month before the concert was almost sold out, so quickly ordered tickets on the 3rd row left and arranged a cheap hotel. So we had two days a nice holiday, where on the way back we had a break in a charming German village Tecklenburg with an old tower and half-timbered houses, white plastering and black painted wood in between.

Right before the concert, when the orchestra already entered, we sat down at the 3 free places on the 1st row right in front of the soloist. Yet she played so perfect and just better compared again with national violin competition or Elisabeth Competition.

Here's a shot for the people who missed this concert:

Afterwards you could buy the violin concert on CD and get an autograph. There was also the 5th Mozart on the CD next to the 4th Vieuxtemps, but I already knew that warhorse, and we could make a picture.

I wear my VieuxtempsT-shirt and I had three weeks in advance even ordered a crate of Vieux Temps beer, but it was not deliverd before the concert for my customary ritual of offering a Vieux Temps-beer. But I had done that when they played perhaps 7 years ago Elgar violin concerto in Rotterdam. I also got her signature on her Barber / Meyer CD. She could still remember the beer.
In a film and musical orchestra I told the story of my trip for this particular violin concerto, but two violinists had never heard of Hilary Hahn and Vieuxtemps. Then you are a cultural pauper as a violinist in your genre.

The 1st, 3rd, 6th and 7th violin concerto by Vieuxtemps I will never hear in the concert hall I think (so we turned these on CD back in the car), but it is strange that a composer with a much greater name as Paganini (people who know nothing of classical music often know Paganini sooner than Brahms or Saint-Saens) they only played the 1st and 2nd violin concerto. Hilary had recorded the 1st vc of Paganini and the 1st and 2nd I have heard in the concert hall, 1st by Rudolf Koelman in Zwolle and 2nd of him in Enschede and the 2nd by Simone Lamsma in The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and one time with an amateur orchestra. Perhaps Hilary can record one of these late Paganini vc’s for example, the 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th violin concerto by Paganini on a CD , like Hendryck Szereng (3rd), Arthur Grumiaux (4th) and Salvatore Accardo, (all of them and thus 5th and 6th) did before.

I noticed that Hilary played the 3rd part of the 4th Vieuxtemps quite slow compared to the CD of Alexander Markov. Given the absurdly high rate Hilary's CD Barber vc in the 3rd part, I had expected a fast pace, but did not do that, both live and on CD. After the 3rd movement people want (again mostly older people, but hey I'm also not 20 anymore) to clap, but the conductor raised his arm as a sign of yet wait to clap. After the 4th movement Hilary played as an encore piece of Bach. Perhaps it is a good idea to play a Bach encore after you played a violin concerto of Bach. Bach has nothing to do with Vieuxtemps. So it is more suitable to play an encore of the Beriot, the teacher of Vieuxtemps.

She had recorded 27 new encores. It is better to play one of these (ok without piano). Julia Fischer had an original encore of Hindemith I heard on Radio 4 and it was also on YT:

But I am very happy that I have heard the 4th Vieuxtemps in a concerthall once in my life. I had not expected that 10 years ago.
A few years ago I made a pilgrimage to Verviers in Belgium with the grave, statue and a street of Vieuxtemps is. I then had the sheet music for the 6th violin concerto copied from a library in Gent, but now you can simply download it on IMSLP / Petrucci
Vieuxtemps on IMSLP/Petrucci
, where they are all 8, of which now only the 8th has not been recorded on CD.

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4th Vieuxtemps in Hannover with Hilary Hahn

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