Hilary Hahn / Valentina Lisitsa CHARLES IVES Four Sonatas

In addition to fine program notes by our former colleague Robert Kirzinger, Hillary Hahn writes about her and her duo partner’s experiences learning and playing Ives sonatas. In two pages, Hahn says more about learning and performing Ives, and about performing music in general, than I have seen in any book. I would quote her entire essay, except that you are going to buy this disc and so can read it yourself. “A piece of music eventually has to get onstage, in front of audiences, for its performers to see its true colors.” After taking the Third Sonata around the world: “The more we played it for various audiences, the more the details and refinements Ives wrote into his score became ingrained into our musical consciousness, and the freer we became to explore additional expressive possibilities.”
I think of Hahn as a very “classical” artist, although she plays and has recorded everything from J. S. Bach to Jennifer Higdon. Her tone here is very clean and a touch dry, without a drop of romantic syrup—which would not be out of place in Ives’s sonatas. Her playing suggests the word “honesty,” fully appropriate for Ives, the Yankee traditionalist/iconoclast. Kirzinger this time: “Combining the classical tradition of Brahms and Beethoven with the vibrant, self-reliant spirit of an optimistic, growing, still-young United States …” Hahn and Valentina Lisitsa lean toward the masters but do not shortchange the Americanisms; they just make sure that the popular elements do not take over. At first hearing, these performances sound a bit conservative, but they wear well, no doubt for just that reason.
Returning to a favorite set by Gregory Fulkerson and Robert Shannon, we find more emotion, more heart-on-sleeve playing, and it works very well. But Fulkerson’s intonation is inconsistent and his tone runs to edginess. It is Shannon who provides the depth and clarity on that Bridge set; he emerges as more than a full partner. Lisitsa is by no means a cipher; she and Hahn have obviously come to full agreement—they play as one, each taking the lead as the music requires. Fulkerson’s tempi sound just right (well, I am used to them); Hahn is considerably faster in all but one of the 12 movements (a total timing of 66:24 to Fulkerson’s 79:52), and yet her performances never seem rushed. Deutsche Grammophon provides fine sound from Clubhouse, a recording studio in Rhinebeck, New York. While I won’t discard Fulkerson/Shannon, I have no hesitation recommending Hahn/Lisitsa as a first choice for this wonderful music. (Arkiv Music)