Music Review
Pacific Crossing: Brahms by Way of Seoul
By STEVE SMITH
Published: June 2, 2010
Western classical music has long flourished in Korea: where Western missionaries go, music tends to follow. In recent decades South Korean musicians like the Chung siblings — the violinist Kyung-Wha Chung, the cellist Myung-Wha Chung and the pianist and conductor Myung-Whun Chung — and more recently Hahn-Bin, a violinist, have led prominent international careers. And South Korea is a flourishing market for Western visitors, as the New York Philharmonic discovered in its Seoul concerts in 2008 and last year.
The violinist Judy Kang performed a Brahms concerto with the Korean Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday night at Carnegie Hall.
South Korean orchestras, though, are less commonly encountered here, which made a visit by the Korean Symphony Orchestra to Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night a rare and enticing proposition. The 80-member ensemble, founded in 1985, established its present residency at the opulent Seoul Arts Center in 2001. The concert, conducted by Eunseong Park, was part of the orchestra’s 25th anniversary celebration, which also includes a concert in Cerritos, Calif., next Monday.
The orchestra’s chief asset, a plush, substantial string sound, was revealed during the opening work, Soonjung Suh’s “Yu-Hyun.” Awarded a third prize in the 2004 Toru Takemitsu Composition Award competition (judged by the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg), the piece was a restless dreamscape saturated with Impressionist hues and gestures. Offering an appealing elaboration on Debussy and Ravel with its murmuring winds, robust brass effusions and shimmering metal percussion, the work earned Mr. Suh a warm reception at its conclusion.
Judy Kang, a Canadian violinist and most likely the only musician to have worked with both Pierre Boulez (during his 2005 Manhattan School of Music residency) and Lady Gaga (in her current touring band), was featured in Brahms’s Violin Concerto. Ms. Kang, who drew whoops from the audience before playing a single note, offered a lean, focused sound, pinpoint intonation and expressively molded phrasing. Every line seemed to mean something personal in what amounted to an amorous serenade.
The orchestra’s accompaniment was solid and effective if rhythmically foursquare. Momentum and continuity were sapped by applause between movements.
The strings were at their most ravishing in Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2, a richly upholstered sprawl filled with memorable themes and juicy melodies. Superb English horn and clarinet solos and a burnished French horn section abetted a straightforward, satisfying account, though applause between movements distracted again.
Responding to an instantaneous standing ovation from a largely Korean-American throng, the orchestra presented showy arrangements of two traditional Korean songs for its encores: “Chunan Street,” a buoyant romp, and “Hometown Spring,” a sentimental ballad.
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