Like a slow drumroll, four strikes of the timpani herald the beginning of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. This time, they also announced Hilary Hahn’s triumphant return to San Francisco.
The American violinist resumed performing earlier this spring after taking a months-long hiatus due to injury. In past seasons, Hahn had come to the Bay Area most often as a recitalist, which made this San Francisco Symphony concert on Thursday, May 29 — one of Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen’s final programs before he departs the orchestra in mid-June — that much more special.
Beethoven’s concerto, however, is as ubiquitous as classical music gets. How could it be otherwise, with such singable melodies? The embellishments throughout the solo part, pearly scales and arpeggios, resemble a violinist’s warm-up — simple in theory and yet almost impossibly difficult to hit in front of an audience.
Hahn augmented the concerto’s technical scope with her choice of cadenzas, the same substantial ones by turn-of-the-century violinist Fritz Kreisler that she’s been playing since her days as a child prodigy. Indeed, this performance wasn’t so very different from the recording she made at 18 or even from her earlier German debut with the piece in a now-famous televised concert.
This isn’t to slight the Hahn of 2025. She was simply that rare young artist who seemed to emerge fully formed — with tasteful interpretations, stellar bow technique, and near-flawless intonation.
After the orchestra’s elegant introduction, Hahn’s superpowers were on display from the first ascending octaves through the final chords. The bravura passages, in which she exerted extraordinary control over the dropping of her left-hand fingers, were brilliant and clear. The slow movement’s variations were lacy fine, the wispy high notes resounding like tiny, perfect bells.
And the musicality was a touch more expressive from the mature violinist. The streams of triplets in the opening Allegro, and the silvery slurs in a dolorous corner of the Rondo finale, seemed more considered. Here and there (and in the encore, Steven Banks’s Through My Mother’s Eyes, a schmaltzy showpiece with a big heart), the phrases broadened more than they once did. Some three decades into her career and with a full house rooting for her, Hahn appeared to revel anew in this old music.
Her fans made an impressive audience for Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony in the first half of the program — a performance that, under Salonen’s leadership, struggled both rhythmically and dramatically.
If the Fourth — a refined work tucked between Beethoven’s heroic “Eroica” and fateful Fifth — is perhaps the least played of the composer’s nine symphonies, it’s not the piece’s fault, only the programmers’. At any rate, the San Francisco Symphony has engaged Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden for a Beethoven cycle covering three seasons, beginning in 2026. Let the Fourth soon sound again.
This story was first published in Datebook in partnership with the San Francisco Chronicle.
