First impressions were very favourable. Baltimore-born Hilary Hahn makes colourful music of the Prelude of the E major Partita, a performance couched in a mildly ‘old-fashioned’ style, always bright and lively, leaning this way or that but never distorting the musical line. The Lourie is graciously, lightly expressive (gentle vibrato, clean trills, subtle shifts), the faster dances neatly bowed, rhythmically firm and nicely buoyed – though tiny misjudgements in timing tend to trouble parts of the first Minuet. The Second Partita’s opening Allemande is played very slowly and solemnly, albeit with finely-graded tone; but the 17'47'' Chaconne is something of a sightseer’s guided tour, ambling from episode to episode with plenty of incident but little sense of architecture. Here Hahn’s strongest virtues – her miniaturist feeling for nuance, her subtle rubato – tend to indulge the moment at the expense of structure, so that noble arches become ornamental crannies and what should be an inspired journey sounds as if it is going nowhere in particular. Sample Grumiaux, Milstein, Heifetz or Szigeti and the true import of this magnificent music suddenly registers. The C major Fugue (also taken very slowly) is another case in point, the last section especially, where numerous dynamic emphases detract from the main argument (try from 6'04'', just before Bach inverts his principal theme – or a little later, at 8'58''). Then again, chords are warmly negotiated (no ugly ‘scrunching’ across the strings), the tone is nicely modulated and Hahn’s musicianship – her feeling for, and response to, the music – is always impressive. The last two movements of the C major Sonata are beautifully played.
I hate to sound negative, especially in view of Hahn’s exceptional violinistic gifts (she really is a cut above most of her peers), but solo Bach is far more than the sum of its parts: one needs occasionally to disengage from detail and attend to the grand design, and at just 17, Hilary Hahn has plenty of time to play, study and listen to alternative interpretative perspectives. Sony’s recordings are first-rate.'