Kyung Wha Chung
Perth Concert Hall
Michael Tumelty
WHAT a marvel is South Korean violinist Kyung Wha Chung, whose recital in Perth drew a very good and foot-stompingly appreciative crowd.
Chung has come through injuries, being offstage for years and effectively retired.
She is in her mid-sixties, though that can mean nothing.
Some musicians go on playing and conducting into their eighties.
And she has returned to the stage in what seemed on Thursday very good form, her rich, impassioned sound undiminished in its texture (I always thought of her sound as one would of oils rather than watercolours), her projection still laser-like in its intensity and her unremitting focus on the music ultra-serious, though she did permit a massive smile to melt her features in a radiant performance of the sun-kissed finale of Cesar Franck's Violin Sonata.
Otherwise, the recital was a hefty affair, with Chung and powerhouse American pianist Kevin Kenner, a man of great strength (in the Osborne mould) giving a fluidly-melodic account of Mozart's G major Sonata.
You could almost sense Chung, through her immaculate definition, declaring the developing role of the violin in the genre: an equal in a partnership, not subservient to the piano.
And they were equals, too, in their colossal account of Prokoviev's First, and bleak, terrifying Violin Sonata, where Kenner had the deep bells tolling down to Hell, while the icy wind of Chung's high-speed scales whipped off the gravestones.
Chung's Chaconne from Bach's Second Partita was a miracle of momentum and humanity, while in Franck's glowing Sonata, with its wonderful tune, the two musicians played as though their life depended on it.
A good night.
첫댓글 우후후후 드디어 내일 직접 뵈러 갑니다. 아 설레라~
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