Hilary Hahn is creating music here and now

Berwaldhallen (Stockholm) 2019-02-22

Sveriges Radios symfoniorkester
Conductor: Lahav Shani
Soloist: Hilary Hahn, violin

Prokofiev: Symphony no 1
Prokofiev: Violin concerto no 1
Prokofiev: Symphony no 5


A whole evening with one of my favourite composers and with one of my favourite soloists. And even if my expectations were high, this evening exceeded them.

The first symphony is rather odd. It doesn't sound at all Prokofiev. The conductor and the orchestra were clever - they didn't try to make it into anything more than it is. They delivered a bright and sparkling piece of music where especially the woodwind could show their mastery.

It's amazing to realise that the first symphony and the first violin concerto are written almost at the same time. The violin concerto is a micro cosmos of emotions and musical ideas. It's bursting of energy. Sometimes it requires more than just a beautiful tone and technically skilled playing.
It takes a very special musician to make it fly. Hilary Hahn is that musician. She took it beyond technical show-off. It was much more than an interpretation. It was one of those very rare moments when you feel that the music is created in that very moment. It was as if all the emotions of the music were poured into a basket, and Hilary Hahn and the conductor pulled them out carefully one by one.
It was one of the concerts when I absolutely wish that it was recorded for later CD release.
The encore was a sarabande by Bach. If love can have a sound, this is how it would sound. Her playing was from within the music and it was saying "I love to play this music".
Hilary Hahn is not only a top level technical violinist, she is also a true musician. (She gets an extra plus for picking up the conductor's baton with a smile when he dropped it in the middle of the concerto.)

The fifth symphony was also written during wartime, although the next world war. It has a lot of epic and dramatic feeling in it. The conductor and the orchestra chose to lean towards a dark and rather fateful approach. The lower register instruments got a prominent role, especially the double basses. It was as if the conductor had told them "no matter the volume indication in the score - always play one degree louder". And when you tell a double bass that - you will get it.
I will make a small comparison with another fifth symphony - the one by Beethoven. The Beethoven is forever related with fate. But where Beethoven lets man triumph in the last movement, I don't here the same triumph in Prokofiev's fifth. It's also about fate, but it's much more expressing destiny as something big and unavoidable. It's strange that Prokofiev himself described it as "a hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty powers, his pure and noble spirit." At least that wasn't what Lahav Shani and the orchestra gave us in their masterful delivery of one of the truly great symphonies.