Do Je-hae edits news stories as part of the AI team.
61st Rise of Korean female violinists
New generation of musicians achieve unprecedented recording, competition feats
By Do Je-hae
By Do Je-hae
Unlike the piano, which requires physical strength and big hands, the violin is an ideal instrument for women: And Korean women have excelled in the field.
One of the most remarkable female violinists of all time, Chung Kyung-wha, was an early pioneer among Korean and Asian instrumentalists.
In the late 1980s, TIME magazine selected her as one of the world's top five female violinists alongside Anne-Sophie Mutter (Germany), Viktoria Mullova (Russia), Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (U.S.) and Midori (Japan-U.S.).
"She is able to draw from the lower three strings of the instrument a range of emotions which I have heard from no other," said Ray Minshull, former head of Decca's Classical Music Department from 1967 to 1994.
"At a time when there were few female instrumentalists exclusively recording for major labels, Decca chose Chung in the 1970s.
She has inspired many young Korean musicians, who followed in her footsteps to train at the Juilliard School and seek success in major U.S. violin competitions, which would provide opportunities to play with important orchestras.
Since then, younger violinists of Korean descent such as Kim Chee-yun or Sarah Chang have also built international careers. But they have yet to show the level of musicianship or maturity in interpretation that Chung displayed at the height of her career in the 1980s-90s.
Now, a number of young female violinists of Korean heritage have emerged with a potential to become the “next Chung Kyung-wha.”
Korean-German violinist Kim Su-yoen is considered a leader among them.
Unlike the earlier generation, Kim and her contemporaries are trained in Europe, particularly Germany, and have chosen Europe as their base.
Rare recording of Bach
This month, Kim became the first Korean violinist to release an album of J.S. Bach’s (1685-1750) sonatas and partitas for solo violin with Deutsche Grammophon (DG). The volume of work is considered the "Bible of the Violin Repertoire."
Even Chung, who recorded most of the major concertos for the instrument with Decca and EMI, has yet to record one of the most phenomenal set of works by the Baroque master.
Very few violinists have recorded the whole set, and even violinists like Chung have shunned recording the full cycle until they are "mature enough" to take on the monumental challenge.
The German label has chosen the 24-year-old Kim to record its first recording of the work in more than 20 years. DG has previously released the work only three times, by master violinists Nathan Milstein, Henrik Schering and Shlomo Mintz. Completed in 1720, the revolutionary set of six works (three sonatas and three partitas) firmly established the technical capability of the violin as a solo instrument. The pieces have served as an archetype for violin pieces for the following generations of composers including Eugene Ysaye and Bela Bartok.
Kim’s recording of Bach is a continuation of her musical pattern, different from other prodigies who usually burst onto the recording scene with showy concertos from Tchaikovsky or Paganini.
Her first recording for DG was a set of Mozart sonatas for violin and piano, which are also reserved for more mature artists in recordings and concerts. A staple in her concerto repertoire has been the marvelous D-major concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven, rather than the more popular ones of Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky or Bruch.
Though German-born and marketed as a German artist, Kim insists on carrying her Korean passport.
Born in Germany in 1987, Kim began playing the violin at age five. By the time she was 10, she became the youngest ``jungstudent’’ (extraordinary student) at the Academy of Music Detmold. A champion of the 2003 Leopold Mozart and the 2006 Hannover International violin competitions, she is currently studying in Munich.
"Bach was a richly expressive composer. I discovered the personal aspect in the music of Bach which I had thought as only sacrosanct. That was when I lost a lot of my fear of Bach," Kim said.
Listening to Kim's Bach, one is likely to get an impression of hearing an older artist who has been thorough all the ups and downs of life. Her sound is elegant and warm, her technique is flawless and the maturity of her musicianship in unmistakable.
"I want to be a performer who can transparently express the rich colors in the music. The attraction in Bach's music is the varied feelings it evokes. What I wanted to express in this recording was not myself but Bach’s warm and at times emotional wavering," Kim said.
The highlight of the album is the Chaconne (Ciaccona) in D minor, the concluding movement of Partita No. 2 in D minor, lauded by performers and composers alike as one of the greatest pieces ever written in Western classical music.
Johannes Brahms once wrote to Clara Schumann in a letter about the Chaconne; "On one stave, for a small instrument, Bach writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings."
The piece is around 14 minutes long and requires the utmost interpretational and technical skill. Kim tackles the piece with unusual facility and emotional maturity.
European connection
Previously, many Korean teachers and parents thought that the best school for honing the talents of classical music prodigies was the Juilliard School in New York. It's very much like how the rest of Korea equates Seoul National University as the most prestigious.
But younger musicians are heading to Europe, particularly Germany and France, and even Russia to train.
Violinist Choi Ye-eun chose to study in Germany in her teens. Last year, she played with the New York Philharmonic in Seoul.
As one of the protégées of the German star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, she is building a solid career in Europe and in North America with a musical maturity beyond her 23 years.
Like Kim, her playing is marked by an elegant, deep sound and phenomenal technique. One of the most promising talents to emerge from Korea and Germany in recent years, she was named “Emerging Artist of 2007'' by the American Symphony Orchestra League.
After studying under Kim Nam-yun, Choi currently works with Ana Chumachenko in Munich with the support of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. At 15, she became the youngest ever winner of the 2003 Montreal International Musical Competition.
Germany became her second home by chance, when a manager from the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation noticed her at a German festival in 2005 and recommended her to Mutter.
``It was a perplexing audition. I was given one month to practice Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Schostakovich concertos as well as Ravel, Beethoven and Debussy sonatas. But at the actual audition I was asked to play Bach,'' she said in a previous interview with The Korea Times. The Foundation awarded the young artist a scholarship and continues to support her.
Violinist Yoon so-young is another rising talent with a European background.
After completing her studies at the Cologne University of Music in Germany, she recently became the first Korean to win the International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition held from Oct. 8 to 23 in Poland, the Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation said.
The Wieniawski is one of the most important international violin competitions in the world.
Established in 1935 in honor of violin virtuoso and composer Henryk Wieniawski, the competition has launched the careers of some of the most iconic violinists of all time, including David Oistrakh (1908-1974) of Russia.
As winner of the competition, the 27-year-old has won some important orchestra engagements, including the Quebec Symphony Orchestra conducted by Russian violin virtuoso and conductor Maxim Vengerov.
Orchestral positions
Rather than focusing on maintaining a solo career, many young violinists trained overseas are choosing to play for orchestras in the country they studied in.
There are some Korean women in famous U.S. orchestras in New York, Boston and Chicago and some up and coming musicians have landed jobs in European orchestras.
Park Ji-youn, for example, recently joined as concertmaster the “Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire (ONPL),” a French symphony orchestra based in Angers and Nantes, France.
It is uncommon for a violinist in her 20s of any nationality to start an orchestra career as concertmaster. After training in Paris and Salzburg, the Austrian hometown of Mozart, she was a finalist at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in 2009. She is the winner of the 2004 Tibor Varga Competition in Switzerland.