{"id":52116,"date":"2018-03-01T12:02:02","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T17:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/montreal\/?p=52116"},"modified":"2018-11-29T06:10:17","modified_gmt":"2018-11-29T11:10:17","slug":"review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/montreal\/2018\/03\/01\/review\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW | Time Is of the Essence for Seong-Jin Cho, in Chopin and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Seong-Jin Cho. (Cr\u00e9dit: Harald Hoffmann).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If time is hard to come by these days, Seong-Jin Cho<\/strong> did a masterful impression of buying it for his Ottawa audience.<\/p>\n

Tuesday evening on the National Arts Centre main stage, the Korean pianist teased, poked and shaped fleeting moments into extensions of his musicality. Negotiating early Beethoven to mature Beethoven, Debussy to Chopin, Cho deftly assumed each work\u2019s contrasting character. And through it all, lyrical Chopinesque melody lines weaved in and out of the program, a quality that came to worldwide attention when Cho won the most recent Chopin International Piano Competition in 2015 \u2013 considered by classical music pundits to be the most prestigious piano competition in the world.<\/p>\n

Cho\u2019s interpretation of Beethoven\u2019s Sonata No. 13 \u2018Pathetique\u2019<\/em> exemplified the youthful mood swings of Beethoven\u2019s early-to-middle period. It was a clean reading, without unnecessary brooding on dark harmonies or sensationalist indulgences on silences. Immediately apparent was that Cho is a craftsman, with no two musical iterations evoking the same flavour or features \u2013 an approach he held steadily throughout the evening. Unexpectedly, there was a small handful of voicing inconsistencies during the performance: quicker adjustments could have brought out more sparkling themes over a less rumbling bass.<\/p>\n

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The lush Sonata Op. 109<\/em> hails from Beethoven\u2019s late period, and Cho\u2019s treatment brought out its character piece format. The opening movement\u2019s sequences were freely spun; combined with shifting harmonies, the rolling texture was punctuated by structural markers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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In the third movement, Cho elected for an idiosyncratic treatment typically heard in Chopin\u2019s music where notes between the two hands are slightly staggered. Again, Cho needed a few moments in the choral opening before successfully fitting the left hand within the first resonant frequencies of the right hand. But once the movement\u2019s texture picked up, so too did Cho\u2019s playing, evolving into long threads of undying sound.<\/p>\n

The intermission was pivotal in the performance, and the pieces that followed showcased Cho in competition form. His interpretation of Debussy\u2019s Images, Bk 2 <\/em>seized listeners\u2019 attention for its crystalline sound, imaginative tone palette and moments of suspended time. Cho\u2019s rendition of Poissons d\u2019or<\/em> was the most intricate version I\u2019ve heard, with splashy articulation, bluesy cascades and crystalline tops which had eluded him in the first half of the evening. Again, Cho finessed the microseconds at his disposal, befriending time to create a rich soundscape.<\/p>\n

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In the Chopin Sonata No. 3 in B minor<\/em>, Cho saved the evening\u2019s best for last. Organic awareness of harmonies and balanced voicing met an innate feeling for Chopin\u2019s music, coupled with a sense of abandon and ease that escapes analysis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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No element was overstated, and there was only one slipped note \u2013 his only one of the entire evening. With the music at his beck and call, Cho kept fury\u2019s wrath at bay before unleashing the fourth movement\u2019s angst in an ominous culmination: a poignant final iteration of the theme, lingering on each note against a backdrop in the left hand that rang like a death knell.<\/p>\n

As the encore piece, Cho played the perennial Moment musical in F minor <\/em>by Schubert. What normally comes across as carefree became a clockwork miniature concert piece, holding the audience\u2019s rapt attention and propelled by restrained energy. If Seong-Jin Cho doesn\u2019t win over audiences using flash, it\u2019s his innate musicianship that will sustain his career for years to come.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

MOIS DU PIANO-PIANO MONTH | Seong-Jin Cho: A Musical Communion<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n