Who: Hilary Hahn with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Friday at 6.30pm
On disc: Bach: Violin and Voice (Deutsche Grammophon)
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has one hot ticket next Friday in the first concert of its 2010 season - so good that Gramophone magazine has singled out the programme as one of the best events of the month, up there with Andre Previn at the Barbican and Marin Alsop at the Concertgebouw.
The combination of American violinist Hilary Hahn and NZSO music director Pietari Inkinen in the Sibelius Concerto is a tantalising prospect and I doubt if fans of Hahn's 2008 recording of the piece will be disappointed.
Hahn herself explains the work with a reverence tempered by a slightly wacky sense of humour.
"You can see where Sibelius' influences come from but it's completely unique," she says, singling out its virtues as "lyricism combined with that undercurrent of darkness and the absolutely clear beauty of it all".
And, as if to remind me that she comes from the other side of the Atlantic, the third movement is "really rock and roll, but rock and roll wasn't around when he did it".
Did she feel daunted tackling a score that had received so many fine interpretations, both in the concert hall and in the studio?
"It's a little bleak," she laughs, "but I don't think of that. I don't mind if I play something like someone else does, but I don't want to do it to be like someone else."
She pauses and, after admitting she might unconsciously incorporate things from other violinists, she suggests that "the hardest thing is to know what is tradition and what's habit".
Hahn has no time for those who create artificial divisions between standard and non-standard repertoire. To lock a work like the Tchaikovsky Concerto in the former category, "makes it seem boring, which it's not".
She surprised many when she paired Sibelius with the Schoenberg Concerto in her 2008 recording and she is a passionate admirer of the latter work which she had been warned was unplayable.
"The Schoenberg is one of the easiest concertos to persuade orchestras to do," she exclaims. "Much more so than Menotti or Prokofiev. I didn't think I would encounter such openness but people have been supportive and that's great."
She has advice for those who feel a vague terror on encountering Schoenberg's music.
"With a piece you don't know, you can find yourself forcing it into a category in your mind, just to make sense of it.
"Just let the music find its own place in your head, stop struggling with yourself and simply react to the music that's right there."
Hahn arrives in the country with her latest Deutsche Grammophon album fresh on the shelves. J.S. Bach: Violin and Voice has her joining baritone Matthias Goerne and soprano Christine Schafer in duets and trios, mostly taken from the Cantatas. "I love ensemble playing and I don't get to do it as much as I would like."
She sees her part in the project as more of a supporting role.
"I often play a solo and then Matthias or Christine comes in and sings what I have just played. I have to be compatible with the mood of the singer, to know and interpret what they are going to do."
Hahn's new disc reminds one of the wealth of music to be found in some of the composer's most functional music, written for regular Sunday performances as part of the Lutheran service.
Hahn sighs, recalling how, hearing a Bach Cantata as a child, the combination of voice and violin was "magical beyond belief".
"I wish we could record the whole works, but there's only so much you can put on a disc and this is an excerpts album. I don't normally do this sort of thing, but it was the only way I could get together the album I wanted to make."
