Hilary Hahn

By TERRY TEACHOUT

Yes, classical-music whiz kids are as common as laid-off dotcom executives, but Hilary Hahn is no robotic virtuoso. Her tone is lean and sweet, her interpretations smart and unshowy; even the hardest-boiled prodigy-hating critics in the business go all mushy when she plays Bach, Beethoven, Barber and Bernstein. Wait, there's more. She has lovely, wide-set eyes and the figure of a ballerina. And she writes the liner notes for her CDs, as well as an online journal, hilaryhahn.com illustrated with photos that she takes herself. Next to her, even Haley Joel Osment looks like a chronic underachiever.

Hahn began studying violin at the age of four, entered Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music at 10 and signed an exclusive recording contract with Sony Classical at 16. But she doesn't think of herself as a prodigy. "A prodigy, in my mind, is someone who practices eight hours a day and has a big concert career at 13," she once told a reporter. "That's not my style. I practice maybe half that much, and I've had a pretty normal life."

"Normal" may not be a totally accurate way to describe the life of someone who made her debut with a major orchestra when she was 12 years old. Still, Hahn has a point. The hot glare of big-media publicity can affect prodigies like a sun lamp: first you blossom, then you blister. But this wunderkind has paced her career sensibly, steering clear of the pitfalls that await unformed artists who push themselves (or are pushed) too hard. Now, at 21, she is a fully mature musician with a style all her own. Says Fred Rogers, on whose TV show Hahn has appeared: "She can play a very complicated, unaccompanied piece by Bach, and then two minutes later play Tree, Tree, Tree, which is one of the most simple songs in the world. But when Hilary plays them, she makes them both sound as if she has invested her whole self in the music."

Mister Rogers is on to something. Listening to Hahn's glowing recording of Samuel Barber's gently poetic Violin Concerto, one has the same feeling of intimacy as if the two of you were having dinner together. Only a very real person--a whole self--can make music that way. Far too many prodigies crash, burn and vanish, but this remarkable young woman seems here to stay.