NA YOUNG KIM Piano Recital / Review

NA YOUNG KIM Piano Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (19 September 2023)

 

Korean pianists are the rage in concert halls today, especially the younger cohort of laureates at international piano competitions: Yunchan Lim, Seong Jin Cho, Yeol Eum Son and their like. Korean pianists have been winning accolades for the longest time, but not everyone is a household name. One thing, however, is certain: their innate musicality, rigourous training and work ethic ensure that no recital by a Korean pianist is short of being very good.

 

Na Young Kim is a new name for me, but this Korea and America (New England and Cleveland) schooled pianist, now professor of piano at Seoul’s Sejong University, is someone whom I would love to hear again. Her recital programme, built on two major sonatas, was both satisfying and enjoyable. She opened with Beethoven’s Sonata in G major (Op.31 No.1), one of his early “Middle Period” sonatas which include the better-known Tempest and Hunt Sonatas from the same opus.

 

Kim found humour in its first movement, with its recurrent syncopations and deliberately misplaced chords and accents (sounding to these ears like someone with incurable hiccoughs). Her playing was crisp, balanced by good pedalling that prevented the narrative from becoming too dry. There was also an improvisatory feel to the slow movement, unfolding prettily over a gently throbbing pulse, its dreamily serene opening then taking off on a tangent into places unknown.

 

The closing Rondo with its rustic folk-like melody and underlying drone could have gotten this sonata the "Pastoral" nickname, but that has already been taken by the D major (Op.28) sonata. Kim gave this underrated classic a good run, closing with a final reminder of the opening movement's hiccoughing. Perhaps we should call this the Hiccup Sonata. 

 

Then followed Chopin’s beautiful Barcarolle in F sharp major (Op.60), with Kim’s crafting a seamless cantabile line from start to finish. The rubato was subtle and not overdone, while the right hand filigree near its end became the icing on the cake. If the recital’s first half was good, the second half was even better.

 

Kim has an instinctive feel for Rachmaninov’s full flush of angst-driven Romanticism and the technical chops to do it justice. The popular Prelude in G sharp minor (Op.32 No.12) laid out melancholia on a plate, and seldom has the left hand’s forlorn melody been so well sung. Then came the recital’s tour de force, a blistering account of Rachmaninov’s warhorse Second Sonata in B flat minor (Op.36). This is one overplayed work heard ad nauseam in piano competitions the world over, but despite its multitudes of gushing notes, Kim had more than valid things to say.

 

She performed the 1931 revised edition, which was shorter, more succinct and less prone to meandering rhetoric. The bell sounds were well brought out, through which flowed a wealth of heartrending emotion. The slow movement’s poignant melody rang out unabashedly, then built on a wave of passion, rising to a cascading cadenza at its climax. The finale’s barrage of notes held no terrors for Kim, milking the “big melody” for all its worth before closing the recital on a spectacular high.

 

Emerging to loud cheers from a small audience made up mostly of Korean nationals, Kim offered the the most Horowitzian of encores, Schumann’s Traumerei from Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood). Needless to say, that was very satisfying too. 

 

Many thanks to Jared Liew Wei for inviting me to this recital.