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Better Violinist: Vanessa Mae or Hilary Hahn

post #1 of 61
1/6/06 at 4:10pm
Thread Starter 
Who do you think is a better violinist in technical ability and pure virtuosity, and why?

edit: Please don't vote "Other", I realized such a choice doesn't make any sense given the question.
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post #2 of 61
1/6/06 at 5:20pm
Not even a contest. I consider one to be an exceptional violinist and the other to be a marketing gimmick. It's like a Jussi Bjoerling vs. Andrea Bocelli contest.
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post #3 of 61
1/6/06 at 6:00pm
I can at least tell you who's more entertaining , and who sparked my interest in classical early on...even if a lot of her offerings aren't purely classical but more electronic and maybe even called pop by some

Vanessa Mae - The Violin Player was one of my first albums (cassette!), and will always be one of my faves
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post #4 of 61
1/6/06 at 6:05pm
Hilary Hahn. I will preemptively ditto Welly Wu's positive comments on Hilary Hahn as soon as he sees this thread ;-)

Best,
iDesign
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post #5 of 61
1/6/06 at 6:55pm
Hilary Hahn is definitely the better musician, but I still voted other because I think that the choices were too limited.
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post #6 of 61
1/6/06 at 7:41pm
Hilary Hahn. She is the best damn violinist I have heard so far.
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post #7 of 61
1/6/06 at 7:55pm
Thread Starter 
Forget their respective discographies and what kind of music they put out for a moment.
For example if both were given Bach's partitas to play, who would perform them with better mastery, skill, and musicianship?
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post #8 of 61
1/6/06 at 8:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CookieFactory
Forget their respective discographies and what kind of music they put out for a moment.
For example if both were given Bach's partitas to play, who would perform them with better mastery, skill, and musicianship?
Hilary Hahn.
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post #9 of 61
1/6/06 at 8:38pm
My girl Hilary.

Just saw her last month at Carnegie Hall with Natalie Zhu with Wmcmanus (no he wasn't playing also).

CookieMonster ( ...) I edited the poll for you.
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post #10 of 61
1/6/06 at 9:27pm
Hahn, without question. She is probably as close to a modern day version of Heifetz as I've heard.
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post #11 of 61
1/6/06 at 9:45pm
I saw Hahn in concert twice (Brahms concerto/Paganini concerto #2) and she was phenomenal: especially the Brahms, which was very expressive and was as close to perfection as you'd get. The Paganini had a bit of a misstep but that didn't matter too much.

Hahn has a rather "Russian" sound, rather uncommon among new violinists. She always play Bach as encores, and I'd like to see her doing all the uncompanied Bach Sonatas and Partitas.

Music aside, Hahn seems to have a strong background on Humanities -- always a plus for musicians, regardness of genre. Look at the journal she keeps on her web site.
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post #12 of 61
1/6/06 at 9:58pm
The performance to which immtbiker refers on 28 December at Carnegie Hall, New York was unique as it was the first in quite sometime that Hahn's repertoire included the Bach: Concerto for Two Violins. This was an outstanding performance as Hahn played the concerto with longtime coach, Jaime Laredo. Hahn is among the finest technical players in my view.

Best,
iDesign


PS. Welly Wu, I couldnt have said it better.
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post #13 of 61
1/7/06 at 12:54am
If anyone has any question about this, try listening without looking at any photographs of the violinists! Then the answer is obvious.

edit: Not that HH is BAD looking of course. :-)
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post #14 of 61
1/7/06 at 12:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by iDesign
The performance to which immtbiker refers on 28 December at Carnegie Hall, New York was unique as it was the first in quite sometime that Hahn's repertoire included the Bach: Concerto for Two Violins. This was an outstanding performance as Hahn played the concerto with longtime coach, Jaime Laredo. Hahn is among the finest technical players in my view.
Actually it was in October with Natalie Zhu...here's the program:

CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Hilary Hahn
Natalie Zhu

Isaac Stern Auditorium
Thursday, November 17th, 2005 at 8:00 PM
Hilary Hahn, Violin
Natalie Zhu, Piano

YSAŸE Solo Violin Sonata in G Minor, Op. 27, No. 1
ENESCU Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 25, "Dans le caractère populaire roumain"
MILSTEIN Paganiniana
MOZART Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major, K.301
BEETHOVEN Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat Major, Op. 12, No. 3

They were giving out hand signed CD's and now in afterthought I am sorry we didn't wait (Wmcmanus wanted to)
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post #15 of 61
1/7/06 at 1:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by immtbiker
They were giving out hand signed CD's and now in afterthought I am sorry we didn't wait (Wmcmanus wanted to)
Actually, they were selling the CD's for $20 a pop, but the signatures were free. Ya, we should have done that. I'll probably end up getting a copy of the CD anyway but without the ink from little Miss Hilary.
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