One of those dreadful chauvinistic British critics just wrote the
following about an American recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto
(Hahn/Baltimore/Zinman) although he does manage to get a small dig
in against Lennie B.  Perhaps they are trying to make up for all the
unjustified praise Hugh Canning heaped upon Rattle.  What is the world
coming to?

   NO ONE thought much of Beethoven's Violin Concerto at first.  After
   the first performance in Vienna two days before Christmas in 1806,
   one critic complained about the "endless repetition of some commonplace
   passages", repetitions that can help to extend the first movement's
   length to some 25 minutes.  Only when the 13-year-old Joseph Joachim
   played the concerto in London with Mendelssohn conducting did the
   world begin to realise its riches.

   Now the concerto sits on the Olympian heights as one of music's great
   masterpieces, solo moments of serene beauty alternating with brute
   orchestral force.  There is a mountain of CD performances too, many
   of them excellent in different ways.  Only this year two emerged hard
   on each others' heels, each worth very serious consideration.

   The American Hilary Hahn, still in her late teens, is already a superb
   violinist, and her sweet, singing tone is a delight to hear on Sony
   SK 60584.  She displays great control; David Zinman and the Baltimore
   Symphony Orchestra never put a note wrong either.  No new interpretative
   insights are reached; but neither are there any annoyances, unless
   you include the work's coupling (Bernstein's Serenade for violin,
   strings and percussion) or the predictable photos of Hahn showing
   bare shoulders and looking sexy.

John G. Deacon