Chloe Hanslip is a phenomenal violinist. John Adams is a diverse and skilfulcomposer. This Cd is not to be missed! At just 19 years of age, Chloe has already proven herself to be one of the most talented young violinists of today. Her playing is not only technically brilliant, it has ‘soul’.  She communicates with a passion and understanding beyond her years. Additionally to the Adams Concerto, Chloe’s stunning performances of Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody no. 1, [Corigliano’s] Red Violin Chaconne, and Waxman’s little-known Tristan & Isolde Fantasia, put her entirely in a class of her own. Chloe has been playing the violin since she was two years old; her love of performing spills over. She studied with the great Russian pedagogue, Zacher Bron, and more recently with Gerard Schulz, of the Alban Berg Quartet.

The 1993 Violin Concerto - now, strictly speaking, the "First Violin Concerto" - gets its fourth recording (it seems to have become "hugely popular", as the CD box has it, and I'm glad to hear it). Ms. Hanslip is a fine player, as you have to be to manage this knotty masterpiece, and she fares well against the high-level competition. Stephen Haller raver about her Bruch concertos(M/S 2003), and I can only second his comments about her golden tone and assured command. I think, we can dismiss the ragged Kremer (Nonesuch) and also safely put aside Robert McDuffee's Telarc (J/F 2000). That puts the main competition between this and Leyla Josefowicz on BBC's Late Junction label ( with the composer conducting, J/F 2004). I like Ms Josefowicz's recording more this time around and appreciated the extra presence of the composer and the audience. It's hard to say enough about Ms Josefowicz's playing, which seems to grow in vividness on every hearing. Ms Hanslip is altogether mellower, even suave. She and conductor Slatkin stress clarity and detail and give the work a warmer, more laidback approach, but with a clear sense of dramatic purpose. I honestly like both recordings.

Ms Hanslip has cinema and theater in her background - she was the "infant prodigy violinist" in the film adaptation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin with Ralph Fiennes and premiered Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantasia on Phantom of the Opera; the choice of companion pieces reflects this tendency. The opening piece on this program is a Chaconne based on the two principal materials from John Corigliano's score for The Red Violin : the slowly rising scale of the main title and the big mushy tune, 'Anna's Theme'. I must confess I'm clueless as to how specifically this is a Chaconne. It sounds to me simply like a fantasy on cues from the film, and it doesn't work very well as a concert piece. Don't confuse this with the Red Violin Suite, recorded by Eleanora Turovsky and chamber orchestra on Chandos (S/O 2005, with a reduced version of Corigliano's Second Symphony). I didn't think much of that either.

I guess the brief virtuosic conclusion of Enesco's First Romanian Rhapsody, in an arrangement for violin and orchestra by movie music composer Franz Waxman, is meant to serve as a Red Violin continuation (or encore). What other artistic purpose it serves is beyond this review's imagination. Waxman returns in a Tristan and Isolde Fantasia, originally the climax of the 1946 film Humoresque. It makes Wagner sound like Hollywood (rather than the other way around), complete with corny piano arpeggiations and mooning violin commentaries. Yuck.

I'm afraid those fillers place the Adams Concerto in an odd light, as if it were some kind of pops concert entry. It's not. I hope the young and breathtakingly talented Ms Hanslip resists that well-worn road, which management might foist on her if she doesn't take charge herself. She's a beautiful player, and her Adams is well worth hearing. I suppose the hope is that a coupling like this will sell records, and the unwashed masses will move up to the Adams somehow. I doubt that strategy works.

This might be one of Naxos� best recordings ever. Young British violinist Chloe Hanslip is outstanding on this fascinating solo portrait CD, taking us through a range of eclectic and recent works. Corigliano�s Red Violin �Chaconne�, based on his main theme from the film�s soundtrack, demonstrates immediately that we are hearing a very special violinist. Hanslip�s sound is sensual, vocal and yearning and totally radiant in it top register. The Enescu Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 (arr Waxman) is a gem of Gypsy fiddling, and Waxman�s movie score Tristan and Isolde Fantasia, weaves the famous tunes into 11 minutes �over the top� excess that is deliciously good fun. To finish there is John Adams� impressive violin concerto, the most original approach to the genre since the Alban Berg concerto. The first movement places the violin over endlessly rising caterpillars tracks of interlocked cells of orchestral colour. The second movement is a set of variation over a chaconne bass, and the last movement Toccare presents a minimalist texture with a curious fiddling lines carving their way through all the wackiness. Leonard Slatkin has the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at their best with Hanslip out front displaying poise and authority that should be impossible at her age. I am converted � she is likely to become the greatest violinist of her generation.

American composer John Adams, composer of the astonishingly moving 1980 "Harmonium," is better known for operatic forays into politics - "Nixon in China," "The Death of Klinghoffer" - than his formal instrumental work. But the real colorist he has become (he's dismissed too easily as a minimalist) makes him an American icon. The young English artist Chloe Hanslip, when she can wrest her violin from her marketing mavens, has a start on some real subtlety in Adams' 1993 Violin Concerto. This Naxos album has Hanslip also essay the John Corigliano Chaconne from "The Red Violin" - music closely related to the superior Joshua Bell -- but her reading of the Franz Waxman "Tristan and Isolde Fantasia" marries her technique and emotion nicely.