Augustin Hadelich is of course a familiar and well-loved figure in Seattle, where I last heard him in March in a memorable, thoughtfully programmed recital with Francesco Piemontesi at Meany Center for the Performing Arts. What a pleasure to encounter him in varied contexts at this summer’s Lucerne Festival as ‘artiste étoile.’
The first concert of my visit here brought the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko – a kind of anti-concerto in its resistance to conventional virtuoso display that, paradoxically, became one of the great models for the Romantic violin concerto and that is also extraordinarily difficult to play convincingly.
I was blown away by Hadelich’s signature blend of warmth and poetry, and also by the natural give-and-take between him and this collective of world-class musicians, each with such a strong musical personality. As an encore, he offered his own touching arrangement of Schumann’s Träumerei.
Over the weekend, Hadelich joined with Mark O’Connor and Maggie O’Connor (all pictured here together) for ‘Fiddle Night’ in the smaller venue that is used for many of the Lucerne Festival Academy concerts. The program opened with a set by the O’Connors, charmingly introduced from the stage and including ‘Wildflowers’ as a tribute to Dolly Parton. (Mark O’Connor also played on the original 1987 recording with Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris.)
Hadelich then took the stage alone for his arrangement of Howdy Forrester’s ‘Wild Fiddler’s Rag’ – also included on his American Road Trip album – and O’Connor’s ‘Menuhin Caprice,’ written for the Menuhin Competition, a witty take on virtuosity that fuses American fiddling with the classical caprice tradition.
The high point was O’Connor’s calling-card tune, ‘Appalachia Waltz’ – played by all three violinists together as an unhurried, shared meditation that seemed to reflect on Lucerne Festival’s ‘American Dreams’ theme with a certain ache – looking back at what the American dream once promised, and asking whether it still has a future.
Filed under: American music, Beethoven, Lucerne Festival, violinists, art, classical-music, history, music, writing
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