More elegant way to write a hibernate query

Can someone help me write a better code. I tried this but its not working :

Query query = session.createQuery("from MyTable order by :sortvariable :sortorder");
query.setParameter("sortvariable", sortvar);
query.setParameter("sortorder", order);

This is not working as well

Query query = session.createQuery("from MyTable table order by table." + sortvar + " " + " :sortorder");
query.setParameter("sortorder", order);

I managet to get it working with this :

Query query = session.createQuery("from MyTable table order by table." + sortvar + " " + order);

I need to do this with query because I'm using setMaxResults() and setFirstResult().

I don't think you can use parameters to identify keywords that way. Is it possible to do what you're trying to do using the criteria API?

boolean sortAscending = ...;
Criteria criteria = session.createCriteria(MyTable.class);
criteria.addOrder(sortAscending? Order.asc(sortVar): Order.desc(sortVar));