Comparing Hahn And Jansen

Hilary Hahn and Janine Jansen are both considered to be violin virtuosos and both of these performances serve as evidence to that claim. However, they each make several decisions and perform slightly differently, some of which change my opinion of their performance as a whole. On the other hand, much of their playing is similar like the tempi at which they perform and certain dynamic decisions. The cadenza of this piece gives the soloist the most freedom in their performance so that section epitomizes the performances of the entire piece for each soloist. Through the analysis of the cadenza section, I can draw parallels to each performer so I will be focusing in on that section for specific examples of performance attributes. In both instances
That point can be evidenced by the fact that the recordings of each of their first movements end within four seconds of each other. This means that neither of them decided to do anything very drastic with the tempi, even in their cadenzas. In the first section of the cadenza, the ad libitum, they went generally with the same shape as far as tempi are concerned, but they did differ on which notes they gave more weight and tenuto to. For example, Hahn decided to hold the higher ending notes of the runs for longer than Jansen did and Jansen did the same but for the lower fermata notes. Also, Jansen took the last run of that short section much faster than Hahn and Jansen tended to jump back into the next section after a fermata sooner than Hahn, who took a slightly longer pause to breathe and reset the phrase. Hahn’s approach did give each run a fresh start but it also made that section of music feel a little more disjointed than Jansen’s performance of that section because she connected each phrase with less space. With similar ideas carrying through to the next section of the cadenza, the Tempo I, Hahn took even more liberty with the time, perhaps more than Mendelssohn intended. Jansen also took her time like before, but did a better job of connecting each phrase and keeping a steadier tempo without too many large fluctuations.
Again, they both started the cadenza loudly, as written, and played as though the music were pointing to the highest note at the end of the phrase. The differences start to occur in the second phrase, where Hahn decides to keep the same dynamic of the previous phrase and Jansen, without direction from Mendelssohn, drops down to about a piano and crescendos back up to the last note of the phrase. In the following phrase, they perform with similar dynamic ideas: starting louder and decresendoing to the last note of the run, again without prompt from Mendelssohn. These decisions in particular made the beginning of the cadenza section much more interesting for me as a listener than if they just stuck to the ink and performed everything at a solid forte. I believe it to be the composer’s intent that the performer adds some personal ideas of shape to a phrase. They again place their own ideas similarly over the actual dynamic markings in the next section of the cadenza as I feel as if they only saw the crescendos and ignored the decrescendos until they went up to the high notes. If they performed the swell as written, there would be even more dynamic contrast throughout each individual phrase. Finally, in the last section of the cadenza, filled with arpeggios, the two soloists differ again in their dynamic shaping. Hahn goes for a louder