A Breath of Fresh Air

Last night we had a wonderful treat: the Hilary Hahn violin concert. Dallin received the tickets from me for Christmas as a belated Christmas/early birthday gift (that I can share with him!) The concert was held in the Macky Auditorium on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus. I don't pretend to be a music critic, but I thought I might try to describe the evening.
Hilary Hahn is my age and it seems her parents decided while she was still in the womb she would be a professional musician. Her musical training history is quite staggering. She started studying violin a month before her fourth birthday in the Suzuki program of the Peabody Conservatory. At ten she entered the Curtis Institute of Music. While there she studied with many legendary violin greats. She made her international debut at 14. In 1996 she made her Carnegie Hall debut. She is a two-time Grammy Award-winning soloist with eleven solo albums in twelve years of recording. She tours the world over, performing with some of the best orchestras, etc, etc.
The concert was more like a senior recital: Hilary with piano accompaniment and nothing more. Her pianist, Ukrainian-born Valentina Lisitsa, was equally stunning. They toured the world performing together in 2007, so they were amazingly attuned to one another.
Hilary started with Variations on a Theme by Corelli, which was absolutely flawless. She has intense control and there is no margin of error. Every note was pure and sweet and strong, even when the dynamic was piano. Above all, her style has perfect technical brilliance. She commands every note. Dallin kept saying over and over during the concert that was it like a breath of fresh air.
My other two favorite pieces from the evening were the Violin Sonata No.5 in F major, Opus 24, "Spring" by Beethoven and the Partita No. 1 in B Minor by Bach. The partita was performed as a violin solo, no piano accompaniment. In other words, every note, every dynamic, every nuance, every bow movement was the entire show. Again, she basically represents violin perfection in my opinion. It was simply flawless and gorgeous and clear and sweet and and so powerful.
As if such a performer and such a performance weren't enough, she favored us with THREE encores. It was just lovely. Lovely, lovely.