Reviews
“Her technique was clear and precise without ever being digital or mechanical. Her legato was lithe and easily athletic, like a gazelle on a gambol.”
“The most apt description is glorious. There is lyricism everywhere, as well as an elegant, poised simplicity.”
“Yeol Eum was effortlessly graceful as the demands of the piece evolved; a brief cadenza cueing sonorous ensemble sounds, falling back to rhythmic interludes echoed in piano before morphing to rhapsodic musing, accompanied by celestial horn (Eve McEwen).”
“Yeol Eum’s … wild standing ovation was inevitable.”
“Yeol Eum Son was all unruffled coolness, yet how beautifully she detoured her pearl-like passage work into darker terrain, or, using Andras Schiff’s first movement cadenza, modified it to sharpen its dramatic focus.
Her encore, the first movement of Mozart’s most famous piano sonata, was imbued with all the musical virtues we had already enjoyed, along with some telling and immaculately articulated ornamentation.”
“On few occasions in the still short life of this auditorium has it been possible to see and hear such a display of technique, strength, temperament, and piano virtuosity. An extraordinary performance was delivered to the audience by the talented Korean concert pianist, Yeol Eum Son.”
Her patrician elegance and clean, sharply chiselled performance were exemplary. Here was Mozart for a modern instrument orchestra and a modern piano, but very much in the spirit of Mozart’s era.”
“The second work on the program marked the discovery of the young Korean pianist, Yeol Eum Son, gifted with outstanding maturity. Her interpretation of Totentanz (Dance Macabre), S. 126 by Franz Liszt filled the audience with amazement at her clean sound in the dynamic levels, which she resolved with ample mechanical agility.”
“Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son did what she had to do: ‘just’ play the notes to do justice to the sublimated simplicity of Mozart’s Sonata KV 576. Her tempi were natural and her touch crystal clear as a mountain stream.”
“Yeol Eum Son is obviously a highly gifted technical player but, just as important for me, she is also an expressive and emotional player and without the last two gifts being there, music can become simply a technical exercise. Music should always evoke an emotional response within you and today Yeol Eum Son took us from sorrow to joy and everything in between with her performances.”
“Alkan’s Variations on a Theme of Steibelt characteristic virtuoso demands breached the near impossible. Never a problem, though, for this engaging pianist.”
“Throughout that first half Son showed an ability to conceive each set of variations as a whole rather than merely by episodes, and that sense of a piece’s overall conception served her well when she came to the Hammerklavier Sonata.”
“Son signed off with exuberant flair in the Sonata No 2 by Ukrainian composer Nikolay Kapustin. It is unadulterated jazz, frenzied improvisation writ large, played here with breathtaking virtuosity and physical abandon. It had its tender moments – a bluesy Largo with super-heated harmonies – but the emphasis was on showmanship, which Son applied full on. She leapt from her stool in the final flurry of madcap glissandi; we all but jumped from our own seats in instant response.”
“Yeol Eum Son plays magnificently.. showing it in all places where the piano is heard. She breathes nicely in the second part, weaving and wrapping themes. What power and passion from Yeol Eum Son’s playing!”
“The pianist Yeol Eum Son demonstrated her virtuosity with a powerful sound in the left hand, electrifying in the arpeggios and glissandi. Ravel’s work pleased the audience, as did Yoel Eum Son’s interpretation.”
“At first, one feared that her delicacy might prove inadequate to the more barnstorming music that would follow. Those fears were groundless; she was harbouring her strength. In the climax before the cadenza (given here in the extended version that even Rachmaninov feared to play) she rose to the challenge presented by the orchestral tutti. She sprang up from her seat to descend on the keyboard with the full force of her body. From this moment onward, the performance simply rose from one beautifully charged climax to another.”
“Marvellous, intense and boundlessly virtuosic…from the first crystal clear notes of Liszt’s La Leggierezza, pianist Yeol-Eum Son captured her audience. …[she] conjures joy and sophistication through her magical and expressive playing.”
“Her phrasing was delicate, unhurried… She managed to emphasis the graceful playfulness of the first movement Allegro maestoso, while introducing something more profound in the Andante. Her touch was elegant and restrained, resisting the urge to dominate.”