Paris / Chausson / Rautavaara / Prokofiev

Hilary Hahn is one of the most innovative and interesting artists of our time. With her long-awaited new album, the three-time GRAMMY winner is returning to Deutsche Grammophon and presenting a tribute to the rich cultural heritage of a city that is of great importance in the career of the American violinist. "Paris is about expression," says Hahn, "about emotions, about the feeling of being connected to a city and a cultural intersection in a way that inspires the interpreter and the listener. The city is reflected in many ways on the album. But it is also related to the course of my career. I performed in Paris as a teenager. "

The first idea for Paris dates back to Hahn's time as artist-in-residence at OPRF during the 2018/19 season. After a performance of Rautavaara's violin concerto with Mikko Franck in 2014, she asked the conductor if his friend and compatriot could not write another concerto. Franck and Rautavaara discussed serenades, but the composer's poor health struck the mind. Rautavaara died in July 2016 at the age of 87. To Franck's surprise, Rautavaara's widow later showed him the manuscript of an almost finished, wonderfully elegiac composition for violin and orchestra. The present recording was made in February 2019 at the world premiere of this work in a moving concert that added a new entry to Rautavaara's oeuvre for the last time.

In addition to this world premiere recording by Einojuhani Rautavaaras Deux Sérénades, Hahn, together with the Orchester Philharmonique de Radio France and its music director Mikko Franck, also performed the Poème by Ernest Chausson and the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Sergei Prokofjew, which premiered in the French capital in 1923, recorded.

"These three works are an expression of living art and cultural history, and everything in these recordings is a work of love: the love of music and musical expression." - Hilary Hahn