A Survey of Enescu Symphony Cycles

► An Index of ionarts Discographies

Continuing my discographies, while in the middle of a massive update of the Bach Organ Cycle Survey, I thought I'd squeeze in one with the symphonies of George Enescu, not the least because on the outset it appeared to be a bit of a quicky, with seemingly just five (?) sets out there. Even cursory research revealed this to be an illusion. There are, from what I’ve found out so far, eight cycles, and who knows what might yet turn up, with the help of the readers.

It is prompted, quite obviously, by the appearance of the most recent set, which Cristian Măcelaru managed to have appear on DG. (Quite neat, how DG likes to add nifty off-the-beaten-path cycles to their catalogue, like Franz Schmidt with Paavo Järvi or Carl Nielsen with Fabio Luisi, so long as they don't have to pay for it.)

As always, every such discographic post, even one of such limited scope as this one, is also a plea to generously inclined readers with more information and knowledge of the subject than I have to lend a helping hand correcting my mistakes or filling data-lacunae. I am explicitly grateful for any such pointers, hinters, and corrections and apologize for any bloomers. (Preferably on Twitter, where I'll read the comment much sooner than here, but either works!) Where good reviews have appeared by serious reviewers, links are included.

Now what’s in a symphony cycle? That’s often a question, when it comes to these recorded surveys, be it in Schubert (1-7, 9 or more?), Bruckner (1-9 or all 11?), Mahler (Lied von der Erde or not? Blumine?). In Enescu, too, it’s far less straightforward than the obvious answer – Symphonies One through Three – might seem. There are, after all, two more symphonies that Enescu never finished but which have since been presented in performing versions by composer and musicologist Pascal Bentoiu. To convolute things further, there are four “Study Symphonies”, a Symphonia concertante (for Cello and Orchestra), a Symphonic Suite for Orchestra (the Poème Roumain), and the great symphonic poem Vox maris for tenor, three-part choir and orchestra.

Among other orchestral works that are popularly (if that’s the right word) coupled with the symphonies, are his other orchestral works. They include primarily the two Romanian Rhapsodies, of which the first might be his most popular works, three Orchestral Suites, the Overture on Popular Romanian Themes, two Intermezzi for strings, “Three Overtures for orchestra”, the Tragic Overture, the Triumphal Overture, a Sonata for Orchestra, the Andantino from an orchestral suite, “Four Divertissements for orchestra”, a Pastorale-Fantaisie for orchestra, the symphonic poem Isis (also completed by Pascal Bentoiu), and the Suite chatelaine for orchestra (completed by Remus Georgescu).

The three numbered, completed works appear to be just scratching the surface of the deep Enescu-waters. For the purposes of this survey, however, Nos. 1 to 3 is what counts and will be considered complete. Boni and links to other works are, however, included at the end of it.

The fact that much of Enescu’s music can appear as episodic is, in part, probably as possibly an outcome of our own lack of familiarity with these works and Enescu’s idiom, as of the performances themselves. Enescu needs attention, more often than he demands it. As such, the listening experience either requires more concentration and commitment from the listener than listening to yet another performance of La Mer, or greater exposure. But like other Surprised-by-Beauty composers (Martinů comes to mind), Enescu pays back that investment – and more consistently than some. Dip your ears – maybe start with the Third Symphony or Vox maris, among the orchestral works; the First Rhapsody is almost too easy to like, do that a few times, and see where it takes you if you haven’t arrived yet.

Orchestra names: Usually, I use standardized English names for orchestras, but sometiemes I like the original, because it is pithier. Or I use both, to confuse people. In any case, the George Enescu State Philhamonic Bucharest Filarmonica George Enescu (GESP) is the Filarmonica George Enescu in Romanian. The Orchestra Națională Radio used to be Orchestra of The Romanian Radio and Television and, in English, is now the Romanian Radio National Orchestra (or National Radio Orchestra of Romania, RRNO). For the Iași “Moldova” Philharmonic Orchestra (also: Moldova Philharmonic or Philharmonia Moldova) I used its Romanian name: Filarmonica Moldova Iași, which strikes me as less clunky. Ditto the Timisoara Banatul Philharmonic Orchestra, which is either refered to here as the Filarmonica Banatul (din Timișoara) or more simply as the Bantul PO.
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Edits Date: TBA



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On ClassicsToday: Vilde Frang & Friends Perform the Enescu Octet

Look Mom, No Conductor! Brilliant Enescu Octet With Vilde Frang & Friends

by Jens F. Laurson

The octet of musical acquaintances on this disc, who were all lured to magnificent Schloss Elmau—a luxury spa-hotel right beneath the Bavarian Alps with its own renown music series—is a who’s who of the young generation’s finest musicians. Apart from front-woman Vilde Frang, there’s Gabriel... Continue Reading

Briefly Noted: Enescu's 'Isis'

Enescu, Isis / Symphony No. 5, M. Vlad, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, NDR Chor, P. Ruzicka (released on July 8, 2014) cpo 777823-2 | 60'39"

We are avid fans of the music of George Enescu here at Ionarts. The Rumanian composer kept up a restless schedule of performing (he was a talented violinist), as well as being an educator and musicologist. At the time of his death, in Paris in 1955, he apparently left a large number of pieces incomplete. Some of these are still being brought to light, thanks to Pascal Bentoiu, a Romanian composer and also Enescu biographer, who has made performance versions of them according to Enescu's intentions. This new release from the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern and conductor Peter Ruzicka offers performances of two of them, beginning with the vocal symphonic poem Isis, which Bentoiu discovered only in 1996 in an archive in Bucharest. It is an atmospheric, languid, mostly static work for orchestra, wordless women's chorus, harp, and celesta, and Bentiou connects it, composed in 1923, to Enescu's mistress, eventually wife, Maruca Cantacuzini, whom Enescu called Isis. It is nicely paired with the fifth symphony, from 1941, which also uses women's chorus and a tenor soloist, setting the words of an elegiac poem by Mihai Eminescu, De-oi adormi curând. Both are fine discoveries, even if they are not 100% Enescu.

Ionarts-at-Large: Enescu-Surprise and Mahler-Mediocrity

Enescu’s Symphonie concertante—his Cello Concerto by another name—is excellent programming (with an eye toward repeating the program in Bucharest for the George Enescu Festival) and wonderful music. The Munich Philharmonic’s crowd was drawn in by Mahler 1 (and a few ladies and boys perhaps because of the presence of Gautier Capuçon) and what they got was one of the most beautiful 20^th century cello concertos. If, that is, something written in 1901 can be called “20^th century” without misleading one’s expectations. Certainly its late romantic idiom that even the unadventurous subscription audience found agreeable is spiritually more at home in the 19^th century, post-Wagnerian, with hints of Saint-Saëns, somewhere between Brahms in tone and Korngold in sweep and grand gesture—which the orchestra brought out nicely under Semyon Bychkov. In good form, Capuçon played it with strong, concentrated, and slightly nasal—in the best sense—tone, focusing on the fleet passages more than sheer beauty of sound and variety of expression. Mistaking friendly applause for universal rapture, he felt compelled to give an encore.

G.Enescu, E.Dohnanyi, E.D'Albert, Cello Concertos, A.Gerhardt / C.Kalmar / BBC Scottish SO Hyperion

Somewhat like the Golden Gate Bridge is being perennially painted, Orchestras seem to have taken to Mahler in a never ending convulsion of cycles. Ending one means starting another. Understandable: Mahler draws audiences (for now), and it’s a lot easier to impress with that repertoire than something difficult like Haydn.

At least with the Munich Philharmonic, the Mahleria™ (Prokofiev) makes a good deal of sense: they are historically one of the three most important Mahler orchestras, having premiered three of his symphonies (No. 4, No.8, and Das Lied—more than any other orchestra). But they had elongated Mahler droughts under music directors Sergiu Celibidache and Christian Thielemann who believed in the power of Bruckner. Now the orchestra is making up for it, in this particular case with Mahler’s First. Tedium, sadly, reigned: Mahler turned to inoffensive entertainment, adding to the glut of Mahler without making it an exclamation mark. After a swiftly musical opening, the performance quickly went down into banality, charming but perfunctory even in the Klezmer bits, dotted with lots of individual mistakes and at its best (and also most effective) simply loud. Even discounting the fact that this was the first performance, otherwise known to the orchestra as “de-facto dress rehearsal”, that’s not enough, not even in Mahler.

Notes from the 2012 Dresden Music Festival ( 6 )

I am in beautiful Dresden – birthplace of the (mass produced) tea bag– for the annual three-week Music Festival that has taken place since 1978. After Mozart-joys, Malkovichean divertissement, Bach despairs and delights, and Thielemann’s Bruckner, it was time for a day of variety with, depending how you count, up six concerts.

All You Can Hear

It started with the “All You Can Hear” event at Dresden’s convention center. A promising and interesting concept with Kristian Järvi, the MDR Symphony Orchestra and the (strangely German) Baltic Youth Philharmonic (BYP)… an series of performances that vaguely suggested an open floor plan, a variety of different concerts (orchestral and chamber) to chose from, and active exploration on the part of the visitor who paid a one-time fee of 20,- got a stamp, and was then free to roam.

Except that when you got there, assuming you found the place on your first attempt, there was hearty little roaming, no open floor plan, and no concurrent concerts to hear. Reality proved pernickety on this first attempt at an ambitious and vastly intriguing concept and in the end it turned out a succession of regular concerts in semi-suitable spaces that no one was allowed to enter late, and during which people sat still to reverently listen to the music (including full observance of the ironclad “don’t-clap-between-movements-even-when-it’s-obvious-that-the-first-movement-is-eliciting-applause” rule)… only that they sat in rafters in a convention center hall, rather than on the cushioned seats of a concert hall.

Give the project thick carpets, creak-free seating, curtains instead of doors, parallel musical events, more open minds, and willing, enthusiastic, inexpensive participants (the BYP seems a good place to start) and something wonderful might come of that yet in years to come. The mixed audience was already there, from different social and economic strata, including a legion of tots that were ill advisedly fitted with little DIY-garden-hose French horns. Instruments that proved wonderfully effective in the reverberant halls. “Toooot, tooooooot!” they went, though far enough from the hermetically sealed concert spaces, to do any damage beyond the nerves of innocent bystanders and regretful mothers.

Palace of Culture?

If falling short of its own ambitions, the “All You Can Hear” thing was at least an opportunity to hear a fine Korngold Violin Concerto with Vadim Gluzman (and BYP), a really quite stupendous Beethoven Eighth with the MDR SO, all under Kristian Järvi, and the realization that for all its aesthetic limitations and acoustic difficulties, the convention’s center halls make a better venue for an orchestral concert than the city’s official performing space, the concert hall of the 1969 architectural and ideological sin of the Kulturpalast, Dresden’s “Palace of Culture”. Since the place, home of the spirit of Walter Ulbrich, is unfathomably protected as a listed landmark site, only a merciful fire might one day help the Dresden Philharmonic to a concert hall that underscores, not undermines its value.

There might be better orchestras in smaller cities, and better ‘second’ orchestras in bigger cities. But by that mix of quality and reputation that make the amorphous status of an orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic is easily the best ‘junior orchestra’ of a city the size of Dresden. That knowledge didn’t help during Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto with an engaged Vadim Repin and Markus Poschner conducting, because you couldn’t hear very much from the seats I had, and what I heard sounded as seductive as Tango-dancing by numbers. Whether the thing ever came together on stage is questionable, if so, it didn’t reach me. A pity, too, because the preceding Coriolan Overture somehow did, and that was a most enjoyable performance. Not the fresh and exciting quality of the MDR’s convention center Beethoven, but well played and with enough promise to make the prospect of staying for Beethoven’s Seventh attractive.

Bartók Beneath the Conveyor Belt

Still, with the third movement of Prokofiev not getting better even as it was encored, it seemed prudent to move on to Volkswagen’s Transparent Factory, the spotless, Canadian maple hardwood floor production facility for VW’s Phaeton luxury sedan. It’s a fascinating place and even if the sales numbers for the Phaeton were better than they are, it’s understandable that VW – a main sponsor of the Festival – is very eager to show the place off in imaginative ways.

It’s certainly memorable to hear a program of Moldavian - Hungarian - Romanian folk-influenced works amidst five-and-a-half ton luxury vehicles in various states of un-finish, hanging on telescoping trapezoids from the ceiling’s conveyor belt. The mind raced to future productions of Die Walküre or the possibilities to stage B. A. Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten. Instead the Kopatchinsky family turned up, famous violinist daughter Patricia (with a terrific Beethoven Concerto as part of her ever-increasing discography) up front, violinist mother Emilia and the cimbalom playing father Viktor in tow. A dapper buddy on double bass provided for the groove in Eastern European, Moldovan folk music larks that opened and closed the recital. I find the charade of really letting lose in such a concert, as properly suggested by such music, always an awkward affair. Especially in front of a (German) classical music audience… But there was no denying that it brought fresh air into a recital that came close to suffering from anoxia at several points.

Not during the Bartók Romanian Folk Dances though; those were played as well as I’ve ever heard. Partly thanks to Mihaela Ursuleasa’s pianism, but mostly because it was endowed by Kopatchinkskaja with the requisite seediness, that bit of musical lace that alluringly, suggestively hangs half of one shoulder… the complete confidence of knowing what she was doing, the ability to do it, and a thankfully shameless joy in sharing it. Which is really just the roundabout way of suggesting that it was authenticity that made the Bartók.¹

György Kurtág’s Eight Duos for Violin and Cimbalom (op.4) tested my love for Kurtág, its pp glissandi softer sounding than the factory’s incessant AC. Maurice Ravel’s Tzigane – even in such a coy and wicket-wily performance – is a work I’ve always suspected of appealing more to violinists than their audiences, and while George Enescu’s Third Violin Sonata (on Popular Romanian themes) is one of the great works of its kind, I wish that the composer had made two sonatas from it. The first movement opens with a magnificent lilting lament but in connection with the Andante sostenuto it punishes any lack of concentration on the listener – before the third movement, just as long but subjectively brief, injects much-needed oxygen back into the affair.





¹ As opposed to the airs other performers might put on when emulating such music’s spirit, which causes little more than vicarious embarrassment. There are various musical examples (Dieskau as Pappageno comes to my mind), but really the best analogy are male Russian figure skaters after the collapse of the Soviet Union who bought leather trousers and rocked out on ice, to cringe-worthy effect and music ranging from Bill Haley to Tom Jones. Or the most brilliant counter-cultural film maker of East Germany, Gregor Voss, and his first trip to the West.

Enescu, Meet Brahms

Azoitei-Stan / Enescu: Vol. 1 Vol. 2

Read my review today on the Washington Post Web site:

Charles T. Downey, Romanian duo showcases Enescu, Brahms
Washington Post, December 11, 2009

Violinist Remus Azoitei and pianist Eduard Stan gave a concert in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Wednesday night. The Romanian Cultural Institute has taken this program of violin sonatas by George Enescu and Johannes Brahms on an international tour, concluding Thursday night at Carnegie Hall. The influence of Brahms, whom Enescu met and worked with during his student years in Vienna, was only one of many that Enescu would absorb and synthesize in his own unclassifiable style.

Azoitei and Stan released an exemplary two-disc set of the complete works of Enescu for violin and piano a couple of years ago, on the Hänssler Classic label, and the musicians' long collaboration made for an easy rapport in performance. Azoitei, a Romanian trained at Juilliard and now teaching in London, played with a fluid melodic sensibility and sparkling technique. His not always expansive tone could be submerged beneath the broader gestures of Stan, who was not afraid to unleash the Steinway's power, sometimes pushing the violin to the background. [Continue reading]

Enescu-Brahms: European Encounters
Remus Azoitei (violin) and Eduard Stan (piano)
Sponsored by the Romanian Cultural Institute
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Remembering Enescu

Romanian composer George Enescu (1881–1955) -- or Georges Enesco, as he styled himself in France, his adopted home -- died 50 years ago. This weekend, the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation at CUNY and the Mannes College of Music are hosting a conference and series of performances in Enescu's honor. I was thrilled by Hilary Hahn's performance of this composer's third violin sonata when she played with Natalie Zhu at the Kennedy Center earlier this month. (Jens liked it, too.) That piece is on the festival's final concert, on December 4 at 8 pm, in Merkin Concert Hall. Violinist Sherban Lupu and pianist Ilinca Dumitrescu will also play several other Enescu pieces I would relish the chance to hear live, including the suite Impressions d’enfance (1940).

Available from Amazon: George Enescu, Octet, op. 7 (1900), and Quintet, op. 29 (1940), Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica, released May 21, 2002

George Enescu, Oedipe, Jose van Dam, Barbara Hendricks, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, EMI, 1994

Also on Ionarts: Charles T. Downey, Bach's Unaccompanied Violin Bible (November 17, 2005) Charles T. Downey, Kremerata Baltica at Shriver Hall (May 3, 2005) Jens F. Laurson, Kremerland (April 30, 2005)

To celebrate the Enescu anniversary at Ionarts, I have been listening to a recording from a couple years ago by Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica, featuring two lesser-known chamber works by the Romanian. The youthful octet, op. 7 (four violins, two violas, two celli), is a suave, almost decadent, fairly consonant and folk-free salon piece. It is what one would expect of a work by a 19-year-old grown-up child prodigy who had recently graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris, at age 16, as a star student of Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré. Kremer and his musicians give the first movement a trembling, persistent drive that only lets up in the last two minutes or so, in the section of folk-like echoes over somber open sonorities and pizzicati.

What seemed like an interior pulse of anxiety in the first movement (Très modéré) becomes overwrought in the second (Très fougueux), inviting some daring playing from Kremerata Baltica. The massive chords that introduce the concluding, accelerated section almost have an organ's timber in the amount of ring produced. That thrilling sonic climax winds down to a gentle conclusion, leading into the muted third movement (Lentement). The first two minutes of this movement, wheezing away sweetly, are captivating as rendered so simply in this performance. In the last minute or so, Enescu picks up the tempo, transitioning to the return of the main cyclical theme at the opening of the fourth movement. The themes of the movement pile up in a frenetic conclusion that rattles ineluctably to its end.

This CD was the first-ever recording of Enescu's more mature piano quintet, op. 29, from 1940. The more obvious folk references of the earlier Enescu works, like the third violin sonata, are gone by this point in his career. The first movement (Con moto molto moderato) is a suave and reserved diptych of two sections, with little of the wild drive of the octet. The second movement is faster in tempo but maintains the calm, smooth character of this enigmatic piece, composed during a very troubled period of history. I think this recording bears up quite well under repeated listening, which is exactly what it has been receiving from me this week, and is a good introduction to two facets of Enescu's compositional style and to the marvelous work of Gidon Kremer and his young musicians.

What may be Enescu's greatest masterpiece, his opera Oedipe (1936), received its American premiere only this year, by the Sinfonia da Camera Chamber Orchestra at the University of Illinois, on October 15. As I pointed out last year, this opera was also mounted at the Vienna Staatsoper last April. The EMI recording is certainly worth a listen.

After spending much of his adult life in France, Enescu was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery. On visits there, I have often seen fresh flowers left by admirers on his grave, not to the same extent as Chopin's grave, of course, but still impressive.

Hilary Hahn and Natalie Zhu Recital at Kennedy Center

This year casual audiences delight in – and compulsive concert-goers fear – Mozart, who was born a celebrateable 250 years ago. Not to buck the trend, Hilary Hahn has recorded some of his sonatas with her friend and colleague Natalie Zhu, as reviewed on ionarts. Ms. Hahn’s recital at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall coinciding with that October release, however, was far, far more than just a Mozart-stuffed plug for that recording. Ysaÿe, Enescu, Milstein, and Beethoven (and, yes, one obligatory Mozart sonata) were enough to excite on paper alone.

First off was Ysaÿe’s first of six sonatas for unaccompanied violin (op. 27). For my money, those six sonatas are the best thing written for solo violin since Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas – not by chance, perhaps, given that Ysaÿe took generous inspiration from the latter, particularly in the G minor sonata that Ms. Hahn played with the consummate skill we can expect from her. The Baltimore native and her lean, excellent French violin produce a filigrane, sometimes ghostly, clean tone slightly on the dry side that emanates cool beauty. A press release for the event lauded her “heartfelt lyricism” that “drives to the heart and soul of the music.” I can’t exactly agree; if Ms. Hahn aims for the heart, she misses by just over a foot, hitting the center of the brain as she does. Where the same bio is right on is in characterizing her playing as “free of musical excess” and noting her “intellectual and emotional maturity.” The mentioned qualities of her playing and a certain noble musicality are only underscored by the tone of her instrument – the combination of which leaves some critics of her bemoaning absences of sweetness. It depends on the musical territory for me what kind of a sound I want – but neither in Ysaÿe nor Enescu am I looking for a particularly sweet tone. Rather than neutralize her style with an Amati, Hilary Hahn is better off (if only in my opinion) being her distinct, excellent self, even if that means little Kreisler from her any time soon. (If I want violin playing from the candy factory, I need only go so far as Perlman or Bell, anyway.) It’s no coincidence that the Ysaÿe recording I enjoy the most is Thomas Zehetmair’s recent one on ECM. He is certainly more an intellectual than Romantic player, and yet he still gives each sonata the requisite distinct character of the violinist the sonatas were written for: Szigeti, Thibaud, Enescu, Kreisler, Mathieu Crickboom, and Manuel Quiroga, respectively.

Hilary Hahn came back for the third Enescu sonata, in A minor, op. 25, with Natalie Zhu. Composed just two years after Ysaÿe wrote all his sonatas in a single 1924 night, the Enescu work is of the same 20th-century musical language that Bartók, Shostakovich, Britten, and Bloch employed: neither much (if at all) influenced by Schoenberg (then still only in his early stages) nor backward-looking like the likes of Dohnányi, Paderewski, Stojowski, or Moszowski. Like Ysaÿe, Enescu was one of the great violinists of his generation (exactly one generation after Ysaÿe), and like Bartók in Hungary, Enescu made the most of his Romania’s native soundscape. The third sonata’s spontaneity belies the meticulous (to say the least) instructions both pianist and violinist get on their way for performances. Natalie Zhu let the piano ring beautifully in a work that asks for much more than an ‘accompanist’. Hilary Hahn ripped wry pizzicatos off her fiddle that it was a joy. The blind understanding between violinist and Ms. Zhu, aided by flawless performance, energy, and fun led to many a good thing… thundering applause afterwards being just the least of it.

Continuing with violinist’s violin compositions, a rarity was offered: Paganiniana, where one of the finest violinists of the 20th century – Nathan Milstein – had his way with the 24th Caprice of Paganini, the greatest violinist of the 19th century. Hilary Hahn hardly has to prove her technical ability, which is on par with the best of today’s violinists and well above some of the very popular ones. A little more effort than that needle-through-leather Milstein-sound was audible, but the clarity and precision with which her little spider of a left hand navigated the fingerboard was stunning enough.

Other Reviews: Charles T. Downey, Hilary Hahn at the Kennedy Center (DCist, November 14) Tim Page, Hilary Hahn, Channeling Violinists of Yore (Washington Post, November 15)

Mozart at his worst is pretty – and while there are discernable differences between the best of his chamber output (quintets, trios) and the least genial (early quartets, a few of the violin sonatas), anyone ready to snub an exquisitely played G major Sonata for Piano and Violin (K. 301) would be a fool. I reserve being a fool for another cause and report only happy delight from Hahn/Zhu’s go at the 22-year-old composer, who just about found his mature style at that age. (Despite consistent rumors to the contrary Mozart was, in composer terms, if not a late bloomer then at least maturing at a very ordinary pace.) Tellingly, the six sonatas, of which K. 301 is one, are called Sonatas for Harpsichord or Fortepiano with Accompaniment of Violin. If one makes the test of this title’s ‘truth’ the question if the violin could be removed without the sonata taking damage – as Eric Bromberger in his very informative program notes does - then it is of course easy to “show[ ] how false that idea is.” But that’s hardly the point. Much rather the title acknowledges the central importance of the pianist in these works (and for that matter in the later violin sonatas, also), without whom there would be little impression made. Maybe it is a coincidence that the most consistently beautiful recording, one that has done the most to advocate the value of these sonatas to me, bills the pianist first (Uchida / Steinberg on Philips) – but I chose to believe it isn’t. About the present performances little needs to be said other than that it was utterly musical, bold enough, and (unsurprisingly) more pleasing yet than listening to their record of it.

Beethoven, like Mozart, has his share of clichés to deal with. The “mad composer,” “fate knocking on the door,” and other anecdotes that range between cute extramusical flavor and pure rubbish. One thing Beethoven rarely got accused of, though, is having been a child protégé. “What if he had died at 30” is a popular question (among music geeks, at least) – and the answer is a preliminary question: “Would the six op.18 string quartets and the second symphony have merited great-composer status?” The answer to that, in turn, should you care for me to make up your mind, is “No.” But we’d have ‘discovered’ this Beethoven character at some point and been delighted to find the Sonata for Harpsichord or Piano, with Violin from the op. 12 set among his works. What charming music from this unknown composer, what potential! We would have engaged in the only hypothetical game more popular than “What if he had died” – namely “What if he hadn’t died.”

Beethoven didn’t, we know, and hence we are aware of his seven consequent compositions in that genre. The only reason I hesitate to call them “seven improvements” outright is that, when played live and well, op. 12, no. 3, is such a little charmer that you just can’t belittle it. Another much appreciated fact about this work is that – like in the Mozart sonata – the piano is fully emancipated if not even the lead. It should not surprise that Hilary Hahn would chose three sonatas that so prominently feature and rely on the keyboard partner. Playing just to ‘accompaniment’ or, worse, ‘realization’ is no fun for any musician. And not just after this concert do I feel at liberty of accusing Ms. Hahn of being a musician rather than a mere violinist.

Natalie Zhu delighted with her sleeves-up interpretation that was full of good humor and bright-eyed love for the music at hand. While she played the sonata and showed that her delicate size could hardly keep her from whacking the New York Steinway in front of her as hard as necessary, she had a most assured partner in crime in Ms. Hahn. The concert, presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society was a thoroughly delightful affair and crowned by two short encores. Prokofiev’s march from Love for Three Oranges as arranged by Heifetz (there it was again, that lithe agility I most appreciate about Hahn) first, and then the audience was wistfully sent home with the sounds of an Austrian lost in Buenos Aires – the Kreisler-arranged Tango of Albéniz.