Evening spent with Sergei Khachatryan and Hilary Hahn. Quite bowled over by the 17 year old Khachatryan in the Beethoven violin concerto. Maybe conventional wisdom that says you need to be an experienced, mature artist to tackle a work such as this is not necessarily correct? K. plays beautifully, and frequently with an extraordinarily absorbing pianissimo. This is certainly the best Beethoven concerto since Batiashvili in August 2000, and I was very surprised by just how much I enjoyed it, since it is no longer a concerto I enjoy automatically. The recording made off-air with the NHK orchestra in Tokyo is a model of its kind, with exemplary balance and real dedication from the orchestra (with "old" horns in the Russian style). The encore, the andante from Bach's second sonata, is quite stunning and technically the best since Heifetz. Three stars all round! And thanks to Akiko for the copy.

Hilary Hahn really shows off in the first Paganini concerto (off-air in California in September of last year). She does not quite have the élan of Kogan or Mullova, nor the vulgar panache of Michael Rabin. But, technically, she is anyone's equal. Let down, however, by the recorded balance (very much in the American style, with the "star" well to the fore; why could the engineers not have recruited Khachatryan's Japanese?) Also let down by Hahn's habit of slamming on the brakes every time a lyrical passage turns up. Paganini's concerto was contemporary with Beethoven and Rossini and he simply would not have expected such a degree or frequency of rallentandi to interrupt the flow of the music. However, a thoroughly enjoyable romp through Paganini's evergreen music, and a quite terrifying rendition of the Sauret cadenza.