Violins
The year I fell for violin concertos, and the four I cannot stop playing.
Something happened to me this year and it is that I cannot stop listening to violin concertos.
It started as something to put on while working and turned into the thing I look forward to. Right now it is mostly these four, on repeat, more or less constantly:
- Sibelius, Op. 47 in D minor
- Tchaikovsky, Op. 35 in D major
- Brahms, Op. 77 in D major
- Bruch No. 1, Op. 26 in G minor
Three of those four are in D, which I did not notice for months and now cannot stop noticing.
And it is always Hilary Hahn. I have tried other recordings and I keep going back to hers, every time. It is the control: every note lands exactly where it is meant to, held exactly as long as it is meant to be, and none of it sounds like effort. It just sounds like the piece, played correctly, by someone for whom this is apparently not difficult. Perfect is a strong word and I am using it anyway.
They are also the best concentration music I have found, by a distance. Lyrics pull my attention straight off whatever I am doing. Podcasts obviously do. Most electronic music I end up unconsciously typing in time with. This does none of that. There is enough going on to keep me awake and not a single word to argue with the code for space in my head.
The Sibelius is the one I keep going back to. It is the one that stops being background the moment it starts, which is objectively the opposite of what I said I wanted from working music, and I do not care.
This is not a review. I do not know nearly enough to review anything. I just think they are extremely good and wanted to write it down somewhere :)