“Hilary Hahn has spent a lot of time thinking about her new edition,” writes Megan Westberg last Friday (4/12) at Strings magazine. “She animatedly describes the phrasing choices of pianist composers (sometimes involving perplexingly long slurs), which composers allow a great deal of freedom to the performer, while others expect strict adherence to the markings in the score, and how (and if! and where!) to indicate the choices she’s made in her recently released [printed music edition of] In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores. It is to be expected, given the amount of time that Hahn has spent with this music—almost a decade since she first commissioned the pieces for her popular encores project, with a subsequent recording released in 2013…. These pieces clearly have an active and wholehearted advocate.” The composers of the encores include Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Somei Satoh, Du Yun, David Lang, Bun-Ching Lam, Paul Moravec, Anton Garcia Abril, Avner Dorman, David Del Tredici, Mason Bates, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Gillian Whitehead, Richard Barrett, Jennifer Higdon, Christos Hatzis, Jeff Myers, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Valentin Silvestrov, Kala Ramnath, Lera Auerbach, Tina Davidson, Elliott Sharp, Michiru Oshima, James Newton Howard, Nico Muhly, Søren Nils Eichberg, and Max Richter.
Posted April 19, 2019
