Dynamic Duo

Friday, March 12, 2010, 8 pm

Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front Street West

HYUK-JOO KWUN, Violinist and HYEJIN KIM, Pianist
 

Violinist Hyuk Joo Kwun was born in Seoul, Korea in 1985. He began his violin studies at the age of 3. He showed such a promising talent that he was accepted at the Korean National Institute of Arts in Seoul at the age of six with Prof. Nam Yun Kim. At the age of 6, he won a top prize at Music Journal Competition. In 1995, Hyuk Joo moved to Russia and studied in Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory under Prof. Eduard Grach. His Russian engagements have included performances with Moscow National Orchestra and the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra. He was also invited to International Youth Soloist Festival in Moscow. He regularly gives concerts throughout Russia, South Korea, Israel, Germany and Lithuania.
 

Hyuk Joo, at age 11, won second prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for young musicians. In 2001 he won the Grand-prix in Kloster-Schontal Competition of Germany and next year he won the Grand-prix in 3rd Yampolsky Competition in Russia. He has played in Tel-Aviv with Haifa Philharmonic under Maestro Schlomo Mintz and Suwon Philharmonic in Seoul Art Center. In June 2004 he won first prize at the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in Denmark.

 

Pianist Hyejin Kim praised by critics as “a pianist who is truly passionate, sensitive, and musical… an extremely polished and expressive pianist,” has performed in Korea, United States, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Russia and many other countries. She is the youngest prize winner of Busoni international Piano Competition in 2005. Most recently, she was a winner of Hong Kong International Competition.

Ms. Kim appeared as soloist with the Yaroslavl Philharmonic, State Symphony Orchestra of St.Petersburg, Seoul Philharmonic, Pilsen Philharmonic, Citta Di Grosseto Orchestra, Slovak Sinfonietta of Zilina, Kharkov Philharmonic, Martinu Philharmonic, Nurnberger Symphoniker and many others. Ms. Kim holds a Master of Musical Arts from the University of Hans Eisler in Berlin, a Bachelor Diploma from University of Berlin where she studied under Professor Fabio Bidini.

For the 200th Chopin anniversary, Ms. Kim is invited by to play Chopin’s two piano concertos in Vienna’s Musikverein Golden Hall.  

 

 

PROGRAM NOTES

 

A Light Fantastic Round by John Burge (1961)

 

The title of this work is taken from a rhyming couplet found in John Milton’s dramatic work, Masque, and reads as follows, “Come, knit hands, and beat the ground, In a light fantastic round.” Given that a musical ‘round’ is just a single canon (think of Three Blind Mice), John Burge has taken this image as a starting point for writing a piece that is primarily concerned with canonic writing. Indeed, throughout the work, there are at least two instrumental lines playing a canon and sometimes these canons involve as many as five parts. To be fair to the listener though, these canons can often be difficult to hear as they sometimes make use of a variety of intervals of transposition or the answering voice’s rhythmic values are altered. At some points even, the canonic writing is inverted (for example, an ascending series of notes becomes a descending series of notes).

While the description obove details the mechanical aspects of the work, the composer’s primary desire was to write a work that was very much keeping with a Baroque Fantasy or Fantasia. These works were generally single-movement pieces that had a certain element of structural freedom. In this case, A Light Fantastic Round’s one-movement design can be divided into four tightly connected sections. The music begins with a lyrical passage built above a slowly moving bass line that is joined to a fast, fugal section. The fugue theme is characterized by a repeated, falling glissando gesture, or slide, on the first two notes. The third section moves at a slower speed and contrasts expressive dissonant writing more consonant sonorities. The final section returns to the faster tempo of the second section and pulls together some of the thematic ideas heard earlier as the music builds to the final cadence.

 

 

Concerto for Violin and Piano in D Minor by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847)    

 

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was born into a wealthy Hamburg family in 1809, but shortly afterwards, when the French occupied the city, they moved to Berlin. All his early education was conducted by his parents, his mother responsible for teaching him the piano. He showed such interest in music that his parents enlisted the tuition of the finest musicians in Berlin. He was only nine when he made his piano debut, and we know that he was composing creditable compositions at the age of 11. Over the next two years his progress was phenomenal, and by his thirteenth year he had written a small catalogue of works, including a series of symphonies for strings and the G minor Piano Sonata. His next teenage phase produced the concerto for piano and strings; two concertos for two pianos; three piano quartets, and the first of the massive series of piano works, Songs without Words.

 

He was hailed as the finest composer since Mozart, and his progress even outstripped that famous name. But unlike Mozart he was gifted in many other artistic formats, and family wealth allowed him to travel throughout Europe to experience the music of others, and to meet great names in the artistic world.

The family house in Berlin was large enough to hold concerts and became a musical centre in Berlin, furthering the fortunes of the young man. There was a moment in his late teens when inspiration faltered, but by the age of 20 he was established as a major composer, with the Chair of Music at the University of Berlin offered to him the following year.

 

He continued to travel, visiting London and Rome, now as much in demand as a virtuoso pianist and conductor as he was a composer. In 1835 (aged 26) he was appointed conductor of the famous Leipzig Gewandhaus, and became largely responsible for music in the city. He still found time to travel conducting his own music and championing the music of others. In 1841 he was invited to undertake the same task in Berlin as in Leipzig, which he entered into with enthusiasm. The promised finance never materialised, and the following year he returned to Leipzig to create a new Conservatory. Six years later he was journeying there from England when he learned of the death of his beloved sister, Fanny. He never recovered from the shock, and died a few months later aged 38. He left a catalogue of 121 published works and over 130 unpublished. In hindsight we find his style had developed little over the last 18 years of his life, but he represented the finest composer Germany produced in the early part of the 19th century.

 

Mendelssohn was just 14 years old when he wrote the Concerto for Piano and Violin. The sensitivity with which he balances two totally different instruments is the work of a master musician. He was not simply happy to give the orchestra a passive role of accompaniment, but provides it with passages of brilliance and considerable beauty. Also in the normal three movement layout, the central andante is unusual in giving both soloists quasi-cadenzas. There is a little hint of Weber in the lively third movement.

 

String Quartet op 105 in A-flat Major by Antonin Dvorak  (1841-1904)

Orchestral version by Nurhan Arman                                    

 

Dvorak's last two quartets were completed in 1895, after the composer's return from America, and published by Simrock the following year. Opus 105 was, in fact, started in New York and Dvorak resumed work on it with his teaching duties at Prague Conservatory, completing it on 30th December, after finishing Opus 106. The first movement, with its slow introduction of almost melancholy intensity, leads to a theme of great charm and further melodic material of typically Czech rhythmic and melodic character. This, with a hunting-call second subject, is worked out contrapuntally to splendid effect, the recapitulation abbreviating much of the first subject on its re-appearance. The approach to the conclusion is marked by a reference to the initial Adagio. The second movement, marked Molto vivace, is in the manner of a Czech furiant, a movement redolent of Bohemia in texture, rhythm and melody, with a trio section that derives its opening figure from part of the opening theme. The slow movement has one of those extended melodies of which Dvorak was such a master, its subtle harmonies giving it a characteristic flavour of its own. This is followed by a Finale that adds to its richness of invention by introducing an extra second subject, in the key of G flat, a theme that does not return when the material is recapitulated. The movement and the quartet as a whole may be heard as an expression of thanksgiving for the composer's return to his own country.

 

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