From Hilary to Bill.

OF the many young violinists before the public today, Hilary Hahn may be the most impressive. Last season, she gave a recital in Carnegie Hall that was a model of musicianship. It included a Bach partita, that composer being central to the young lady's career, thought, and satisfaction.

She has now recorded the Bach concertos, with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Kahane. This is a distinguished recording--found on Deutsche Grammophon--with Hahn's playing intelligent and disciplined, as usual. But it is a little brusque: a little cold, a bit mechanical. Hahn could stand to loosen somewhat, and she probably will, as she moves beyond her 23 years. But a certain inflexibility is preferable to the thoughtless meanderings that other musicians commit.

* Hahn may also be heard in the concerto by Edgar Meyer, along with that by an earlier American composer, Samuel Barber. Who is Meyer? He is on my mind because he recently participated in a concert by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center--as both double bassist and composer. He is one of the world's top performers on his instrument, and a composer of widening reputation. Meyer is not the first double bassist to achieve a greater glory: I think of the conductors Serge Koussevitzky and Zubin Mehta.

Meyer wrote his violin concerto for Hahn in 1999, and she recorded it that same year. (The disc comes from Sony.) Meyer is known for his use of bluegrass and other American strains, and these are plainly heard in the concerto. Much of it may strike some as simplistic and quasi-popular. I would call it simple rather than simplistic, however, and admirable for that. The concerto bears some kinship to Barber's, actually, and even more to the music of Aaron Copland. You can hear a little of Appalachian Spring in it, and of The Tender Land, and of Rodeo. What is it about American music that so speaks of the prairie? Or is that only our Coplandesque variety?

Almost certainly, the Meyer Concerto will never have a better advocate than the woman for whom it was commissioned, Hilary Hahn. She displays her purity of tone, and sure technique, and fantastic musical instincts--instincts that are buttressed by first-rate training.

On that program of the Chamber Music Society, Meyer's Trio No. 1 for Violin, Cello, and Double Bass was played (with the composer chipping in as performer too, of course). On Deutsche Grammophon, his Quintet may be heard, recorded by the Emerson String Quartet (with Meyer, once more, joining in). This work provides a neat example of Meyer's art. The opening movement is folk-like and gently lulling--almost minimalist in stretches. The second movement is jazzy and bluesy, something to set toes tapping. The third movement is mournful, and maybe just slightly Eastern (as in the Orient, not New England). The last movement is fast and squirmy: a typical closer for Meyer, and others.

How will this composer develop? It will be interesting to watch. Now 43, he is known as the American "roots" man, a miner of our musical heritage, a creator of pleasant hybrids. He can be knocked for being somewhat kitschy and sentimental, but there are worse things to be knocked for, and--as I frequently remind people--it is no sin to write music that people smile at and enjoy.

I might mention, also, that coupled with the Meyer Quintet on that recording is Ned Rorem's String Quartet No. 4. The Emerson String Quartet played it in New York recently, no doubt in part because we are in Rorem's 80th-birthday year, and he is being programmed liberally. The String Quartet No. 4 is written after paintings by Picasso--inspired by them--and is an excellent specimen of the Rorem sensibility and craft. All this Rorem of late has served to remind us how valuable the ol' rascal has been to the American repertory, and to music.

* And now for something completely different (as a troupe once said): Anna Netrebko is an extraordinarily popular Russian soprano, and--there should be no beating around the bush--is an extraordinary looker. She is one of the lucky few who look like a movie star and sing like ... well, an opera star. She has proven herself at the Met (in Prokofiev's War and Peace), in Salzburg (Mozart's Don Giovanni), and in other important venues around the globe.

She has now recorded a compilation of opera arias, and, interestingly--perhaps pointedly--it includes nothing Russian. This is a wide-ranging, all-attempting performer. Her disc begins with Mozart, and it is certainly correct and commendable--but it is also on the steely side, a little unbending. At least she does nothing cutesy or cloying. Moving into the French repertoire, she sings a selection from Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, an opera that, by the way, will be presented at the Met for the first time this season. (This is an even bigger Berlioz year than it is a Rorem year--it is his 200th, not his 80th.) Anna Netrebko shows that she has a firm understanding of the French Romantic style.

She moves into bel canto with some Donizetti and some Bellini. Again, there are warmer, more inviting performers, but Netrebko's cool approach is welcome in itself, and the darkish Russian hue to the voice is alluring in this repertory. Finally, at the conclusion of the disc, she sings "Quando m'en vo," from Puccini's La Boheme, a famously flirty and seductive aria--not that A.N. would have to sing to seduce anyone.

* In the field of pianists, Lang Lang is the big news of the day, fresh off his Carnegie Hall recital debut (on November 7). This 21-year-old Chinese phenom unquestionably has a lot of fingers, as he has proven during his brief years on the stage. It is a monster technique. But, in my judgment, he demonstrated a growing musical maturity on that Carnegie stage. He remains an incorrigible showman, and the technique is, if anything, more monster than ever, but he did some compelling things musically (even if one could not buy everything he was selling).

He may be heard in two romping concertos, the First of Mendelssohn and the First of Tchaikovsky (on Deutsche Grammophon). These are virtuosic, high-energy works, and Lang has nothing if not virtuosity and high energy. He will make better--more satisfying--recordings than this one. But, as a Portrait of the Artist as a Young, Uncontainable Man, it will do.

* Finally, I give you a novelty--a novelty both musical and political. PentaTone Classics has produced a CD designed to nauseate the political conservative. It features Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and a new work, by the French composer Jean-Pascal Beintus, called Wolf Tracks. (These are performed by the Russian National Orchestra, conducted by the Californian Kent Nagano.) Peter and the Wolf has a narrator, of course, and that is Sophia Loren. But what of Wolf Tracks? It, too, has a narrator--Bill Clinton.

You see, Wolf Tracks is a response to the Prokofiev classic--a rather ideological response. It is "a tale," as the liner notes tell us, "that converts the image of the wolf from a fearsome creature to one that represents the imperative to cherish and protect natural resources. This is a contemporary perspective that encompasses the importance of recognizing the point of view of others," etc., etc. The entire project is soaked in PC. Mikhail Gorbachev--yes, t h e former general secretary--reads a "Prologue," an "Intermezzo," and an "Epilogue," all composed of banalities and platitudes. The Beintus work, in which Clinton is narrator, is almost like a parody by an unkind right-winger. It even includes an anti-smoking message. The score itself is insipid, resembling music for television, or a bad imitation of John Williams.

The bio printed for Clinton may kill you. After paragraphs of adulation, it reads, "His performance as narrator of Wolf Tracks combines an abiding devotion to environmental and wildlife conservation with his life-long passion for music."

But I must report, as critic, that he reads well--very well. So much talent, so much wasted.