Hilary Hahn - Paris

Violin - Hilary Hahn

"Paris is about expression," Hahn says, "about emotion, about feeling connected to a city and a cultural intersection in a way that inspires both performer and listener. On the album, the city is mirrored in many ways. But it also relates to the trajectory of my career. I've been performing in Paris since I was a teenager. "The initial idea for Paris dates back to Hahn's time as artist-in-residence at OPRF during the 2018 / 19 season. After a performance of Rautavaara's Violin Concerto with Mikko Franck in 2014, she asked the conductor if his friend and compatriot could write another concerto. Franck and Rautavaara discussed serenades, but the composer's failing health thwarted their thoughts. Rautavaara died in July 2016 at the age of 87. To Franck's surprise, Rautavaara's widow later showed him the manuscript of an almost finished gloriously elegiac composition for violin and orchestra. The present recording was made in February 20192019 at the world premiere of this work in a moving concert that added a new entry to Rautavaara's œuvre for the last time. In addition to this world premiere recording of Einojuhani Rautavaara's Deux Sérénades, Hahn has also recorded Ernest Chausson's Poème and Sergei Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1, premiered in the French capital in 1923, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and its music director Mikko Franck.

Price: $19.98