(The) Berliner Philharmoniker in Tokyo
An exceptional Eighth but the rest never seems to catch fire
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Label: Euroarts
Magazine Review Date: 9/2011
Media Format: Digital Versatile Disc
Media Runtime: 0
Catalogue Number: 2050448

Author: Peter Quantrill
The remainder of the concert is less demanding of a second or third audition. The Weber is fun, as is the Slavonic Dance encore, but the concerto partnership, so propitious on paper, never catches light. Both the Weber and Shostakovich lack a dark side. The cor anglais and basses set the Passacaglia on its grave course with all the eloquence at their command – and this is the Berlin Philharmonic – but in a performance that feels faster than the clock shows, Hahn rides the line rather than shaping it. It’s admirable that she never compromises what Rob Cowan called her “sweetness-and-steel tone”, not even in the cadenza, but the finale brings little catharsis, for all its velocity – the same is true of the relationship between Scherzo and opening Nocturne – because few secrets, intimate or alarming, had been hitherto confided. She digs deeper into the piece on CD (Sony, 4/03). Her own encore, the Presto from Bach’s G minor Solo Sonata, doesn’t escape the air of impressive command but faceless despatch. When record companies do more with filmed concerts than just throwing the lot on a DVD, such anomalies – intrinsic to the concert-going experience – may recede. I’m not holding my breath.
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