Following In Bell’s Footsteps

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The New York Sun

In 2006, Augustin Hadelich won the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, an annual contest for young violinists. His appearance on Sunday at the Walter Reade Theater is the first of four major events in New York this season, and the others are not church basement affairs — two are at Carnegie Hall and one is at the Rose Theater.

One of Mr. Hadelich’s prizes was the loan of a Stradivarius played by Josef Gingold, and thus it was difficult not to think about Joshua Bell during this recital. Mr. Hadelich, born in Italy to German parents, is, of course, his own man, but there were some similarities in style and substance to Mr. Bell.

Sound was not an issue this day, thanks to the brilliant instrument, but Mr. Hadelich has a somewhat self-effacing tone, not designed to dazzle or impress. Perhaps his most praiseworthy aspect is the fact that he does not look for easy, popular filigree. In the “Sonata No. 3 in E Flat Major” by Beethoven, Mr. Hadelich eschewed the big gesture and the overly Romantic phrase, keeping the discipline close that this is still a mainstream Classical sonata, not one to be embellished as is so often the case when his elders take the bow in hand. Except for a few minor transitional problems, his violinistic skills are solid, although this realization as a whole was a tad on the mechanical side.

César Franck promised Cosima Wagner a violin sonata in the 1850s. It never materialized, but he wrote one for his friend Eugene Ysaye 30 years later, specifically on the occasion of his wedding. Some of the passion that had crystallized in the original plan remained to define this piece as the ultimate expression of the Romantic sonata. Franck creates a unique world of sound, tentative, shy, ethereal, anticipatory. This “Sonata in A Major” stands at the pinnacle of the violinist’s communicative art.

It may have been a bit of a stretch for Mr. Hadelich, but there is nothing wrong with that. He can only grow by introducing such difficult challenges into his concert repertoire. Technically, he could handle the dreamlike sonorities, but stylistically he was far from conversant with the idiom. Franck continuously brings back the same theme throughout all four movements, sometimes in varied form but often simply altered by nuances of phrasing. Here this still inexperienced violinist was not equipped with a sufficiently well-stocked palette of musical colors.

British pianist Philip Fisher is somewhat of a new-music specialist, recently presenting the world premiere of “First Natural Durations” by the still vibrant German bad boy Karlheinz Stockhausen. Mr. Fisher provided a solid grounding in the Beethoven, resisting the temptation to dominate from the keyboard and exhibiting a clear and well-defined style of extended runs.

But in the Franck, he seemed similarly adrift as his mate. Passages always began forcefully, when they should instead commence delicately, even hesitantly. Overall, the problem with the Franck experiment was its precision and straightforwardness, normally fine qualities but in this case misappropriated. It was simply a matter of too much prose and not enough poetry.

Mr. Hadelich chose to end his program with a particularly sentimental caprice by Fritz Kreisler, the sort of thing that Mr. Bell pulls off better than any current fiddler.

The charm of these debut concerts is that they serve as groundings with which to measure future progress. There is something almost foreboding when a young aspirant appears fully in command. What is most interesting is watching them develop. Keep Augustin Hadelich in mind. He could be a future star.


The New York Sun

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