Concerts Grip Fans in Spring Fever
By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter
Evgeny Kissin once said that Korean audiences were more passionate than the Italians. Indeed, local crowds often express their enthusiasm with a rumble of applause and bravos, but rarely do they jump up from their seats in unison.
Korea is an exciting place to be these days for classical music, and two heated performances this weekend in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province and Seoul gave way to some serious ``outbreaks'' of spring fever among concertgoers ― though not a surprising condition yielded by musicians of such caliber as Martha Argerich, a couple of pianist-turned-conductors and rising young stars.
Beethoven in Completion
In 2007, cellist Yang Sung-won told The Korea Times, before giving a rare marathon concert of Beethoven's complete cello sonatas, that ``when the composer has completed his piece, for me that's 50 percent complete. It's exactly at the moment (musicians) perform that it's complete.''
At Gyeonggi Arts Center, Gyeonggi Province, Saturday, Kim Dae-jin passed on the baton of ``completing'' Beethoven onstage to Kim Sun-wook. The word ``complete'' here means not only fulfilling the composer's intentions but also presenting a full cycle of his works, in absolute synchronization.
From 3 to 9:30 p.m., all five of the German master's piano concertos works were rendered with unparalleled harmony between soloist and orchestra. The sense of oneness transcended even that of the 2008 concert where Kim, as the newly appointed artistic director of the Suwon Philharmonic, offered a Daniel Barenboim-esque performance by busily alternating between piano solos and swinging the baton.
There are a few obvious contributing factors: Over the course of a year, the orchestra's newly selected members, including Kim, had absorbed one another's musical visions. Second, Kim had himself given a one-day performance of the concertos in 2000 and knew firsthand what it's like to be sitting before the Steinway ― and he knew it particularly well since the soloist du jour was a former student of his. ``With Sun-wook, it's like you are me and I am you,'' the conductor told The Korea Times before the concert.
But it was more than just a chummy performance between teacher and student. Kim Sun-wook, at only 21, took part in an eclectic musical dialogue with his elder, as a unique artist in his own right. It was thus a meeting point of two geniuses, and one does not use the word lightly or often, especially in plural form.
In just a course of three weeks, the young pianist had been juggling different repertoires, from gracing the Seoul Spring Festival's opening night to embarking on a cross-country, four-piano concert tour. Saturday, the soloist demonstrated physical prowess and artistic gusto to tackle all five of the concertos (presented in chronological order of composition rather than publication, Nos. 2, 1 and 4 and then 3 and 5). Both youthful verve and ageless grace culminated in the grand ``Emperor'' finale, and the fully packed hall congratulated the event with a long standing ovation.
``I'm looking forward to how I will feel after having played all five of them together,'' Sun-wook had said before the concert. The taciturn, serious young man, however, broke into tears onstage, and was naturally too overwhelmed to comment backstage, where he had to switch his contact lenses for glasses. But the red-eyed young man hurried to regain his composure to greet fans lined up for autographs outside ― almost all of those who had occupied the 1,508-seat hall.
While Kim can make any orchestra sound good, the Suwon Philharmonic was most admirable. Conductor Kim Dae-jin led the group to create something that was fine-tempered and tempoed, and still not without power, and allowed the soloist to shine in all his glory. It doesn't seem far-fetched for the conductor, who turns 47 in June, to follow in the footsteps of maestri Chung Myung-whun and Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Transgenerational Festival
On Sunday at Seoul Arts Center, Argerich returned to Seoul for a third consecutive year to wrap up her 11th namesake music festival in Beppu, Japan. The living legend wowed local fans as usual, but the forward-thinking 67-year-old provided a platform for the next generation of classical musicians to stand out: the 33-year-old ``rising maestra'' Sung Shi-yeon; 24-year-old pianist Lim Dong-hyek, who has the following of a pop star; and the 32-year-old Sergei Nakariakov, who is reputed as ``the Paganini of the trumpet.''
Sung, the assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led Ensemble TIMF (Tongyeong International Music Festival) for Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major with Lim. The conductor gave way to colorful, dynamic sounds, while the young pianist showed a most delicate attention to harmonize with the orchestra without compromising his unique artisty.
The Diapason d'or recipient added luminous, rollicking rhymes to his signature light piano touches (but his choice and rendition of the encore piece, Yuki Kuramoto's ``Romance,'' however, were rather odd and uncharacteristic).
In the second half of the concert, Sung and the ensemble, which, accustomed to playing Isang Yun's discordant harmonies, held the audience in rapt attention for Ives' ``Unanswered Question,'' despite a few suspect, mismatched tempos.
The evening climaxed as Argerich and the young Russian trumpeter took the stage for ``Fantasiestucke,'' Op. 73. The elder pianist showed why she is known as a Schumann specialist, while Nakariakov, standing meditatively still as a statue, demonstrated incredible lung power life to the smoothest melodies for the original clarinet part.
The enthusiastic audience responded with a standing ovation, and a retinue of Japanese women from the Beppu festival held up a long banner paying tribute to their ``dearest'' director Argerich.
``It was my first time playing with a lady conductor and it was wonderful,'' Argerich said during the reception following the concert. It was also a special occasion announcing the designation of Seoul as an official stopover for the Beppu festival.