It Must Be Love That's Got Me Singing

Just a real short post tonight. I was boppin' around the net the other day and I came across the cover for Hilary Hahn's new Paganini/Spohr CD (to be released in the fall). All I can say is

WOW!!

Looks like our little child prodigy is all grown up and ready to turn a few heads. I'm telling you, if I was only 20 years younger. Or would that be 30 years. 40 years? Nah, now wait a minute, I'm not that old...

Anyways, if there is any love advice I would give to our young beauty it would be not to get involved with any Greek millionaires. That's what happened to Maria Callas, you know, and look what happened to her (trust me Hilary, it didn't end well). Nope, my advice would be to pass on the millionaires and find a starving writer, or blogger even. An American, someone living out on the West Coast perhaps. Not one of those handsome, young, athletic studs that leave trusting young girls lonely and brokenhearted, but someone older, with a more mature perspective. Yeah, that's what you need. A mature, slightly broken-down West Coast blogger. Someone like...

Well, since Hilary isn't updating her website anymore I guess I might as well bring everyone up to speed. According to this article in the L.A. Daily News her next recording after the Paganini/Spohr could quite possibly be a Schoenberg/Sibelius CD. A strange combination to be sure and quite a risk for a successful recording artist to take. In fact, according to an article I read some time ago (which I don't have a link for) Hilary Hahn is just one of a handful of classical artists whose CD's consistently sell over the 100,000 mark. The others were Yo-Yo Ma and Renee Fleming and Joshua Bell and a few more whose names I can't recall off the top of my head.

Now the 100,000 mark might mean that much to a pop artist, but it's very good for a classical artist, and for someone enjoying that much success to release a Schoenberg CD takes some guts. Needless to say, Schoenberg is not very popular in America and not the sort of thing the local symphony is likely to include in their concert schedule. There is more than a good chance that Hilary could really bomb with this one. I guess it's a measure of her clout(?) over at DG that this CD could ever see the light of day.

But I'm looking forward to it. I happen to love both pieces and I even read a rave review of her London performance of the Schoenberg so I can't wait to hear it. As for the Sibelius, well, we shall see, we shall see. It doesn't seem like the sort of piece that suits her, but she's got loads of talent and, after all, this is the new Hilary (see picture above).

Other than that there doesn't seem to be much else happening. She's performing the Mendelssohn tomorrow night in Hollywood and I guess that's a good thing. I've got to admit, though, I never really liked her Mendelssohn as much as the other things she's recorded. Somehow, it didn't seem to have the drama that it needed. It's such a familiar piece of music that it almost demands an extra bit of hamminess to pull it off. I'd suggest (I'm just full of advice tonight, aren't I) that she needs to be a bit more of a diva if she's going to play it. You know, maybe she could walk backstage and throw a fit or demand a bigger dressing room or insult the orchestra or something like that. Just be a drama queen. Start throwing things and then when she walks onstage she'll be in the proper frame of mind to play the Mendelssohn.

Well, it's just an idea.