This was what it used to be like in classical music: a hot young soloist offers a newly commissioned work along with a fresh interpretation of a warhorse, and it's released with some fanfare on a major label. It doesn't happen that often anymore, but Hilary Hahn, a student of the last student of Eugène Ysaÿe, shows that there's life in the old model yet. The new work was commissioned by Hahn herself and grew out of her association with the composer, Jennifer Higdon, at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. The concerto won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2010, and Higdon's colorfully orchestrated music in general has been popular among American orchestras. But the concerto is closely tailored to Hahn's individual style, with its combination of steely flawlessness and delicate lyricism. Whether it will take off among other performers remains to be seen, but a real marriage of composer and performer comes through here (and of course the virtuoso concertos of the 19th century all had their individual champions). But it comes off beautifully here, unfolding with seeming inevitability from the lovely opening passage in harmonics through the beautifully orchestrated first movement in which the violin engages in both solo heroics and dialogues with various orchestral groupings; the flute, Higdon's own instrument, is prominently featured. The movement's title, "1726," refers not to any neo-Baroque quality one might expect from the "Chaconi" slow movement of multiple ground basses, but to the street address of the Curtis Institute. It's unclear how the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko were chosen for this project, but they keep up well with a difficult new score. Hahn's take on the Tchaikovsky Violin Concert in D major, Op. 35, isn't a barn-burner, but is quite persuasive, with a precise control of pitch that never becomes robotic because the texture of her violin sound, from pearly to wiry, is so lively and constantly in motion. Hahn's tempos are on the slow side, and she tends to open up a line rather than blaze through it. It's not a peformance that will bring you to your feet, but it does hang in the mind. Another engrossing release from one of America's strongest young violinists. Booklet notes, with a reflection by Hahn along with more formal notes by Lynne S. Mazza, are in English only.© TiVo

This album from the Quebec City Baroque group Les Violons du Roy is titled simply Vivaldi. You don't get quite the range implied; the program consists mostly of concertos with one instrumental sinfonia from an opera. But it is a delightfully diverse set, including big Handelian outdoor-oriented pieces with horns; pastoral concertos for multiple winds; and intricate, multiple-violin pieces including a lithe reading of the familiar Concerto for four violins, strings, and continuo, Op. 3, No. 10 (RV 580). Les Violons du Roy, under their longtime assistant conductor Mathieu Lussier, eschew the high-octane approach of contemporary Italian groups, and one can wish for the syncopations to rock a bit more when they are essential to the structure of a movement. But the group is quick and holds together well. Sample the little-played, three-movement Sinfonia from the opera La verità in cimento (tracks 17-19): the opening movement is a study in register and dynamics of which the total serialists would have been proud; the slow movement opens like a flower; and the miniature finale is over before you know it. The orchestra's energy never flags here or anywhere else, and the result is a very fresh album of Vivaldi concertos that will appeal even to those with lots of shelf or hard drive space already allotted to the composer.© TiVo

This admirable Harmonia Mundi release presents Franz Josef Haydn's two cello concertos and the Cello Concerto in G minor by Georg Matthias Monn with the luster of period instruments; refined, idiomatic playing; and exceptional sound quality, with full resonance; and cellist Jean-Guihan Queyras and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, directed by Petra Müllejans, render these works with exquisite details and emotional depth. In a real sense, their performances are acts of rediscovery, for Haydn's cello concertos have become routine fare from too many modern renditions, and Monn's piece is unfamiliar from too few performances. Indeed, all three concertos have suffered the vagaries of preservation and interpretation. Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major was once considered lost until its discovery in 1961; the Cello Concerto No. 2 in D major suffered false attribution and its authorship was debated until the appearance of the manuscript in 1954; and Monn's concerto survived only in an arrangement for harpsichord and strings until Arnold Schoenberg edited it in 1912. To set the record straight, this disc presents the concertos intelligently refurbished, with appropriate eighteenth century style and color. Through their insightful scholarship and sensitive performances, Queyras and Müllejans have produced a fine alternative to the less authentic mainstream recordings.© TiVo