Reviews
“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!”
“This is a sheer delight, which won’t surprise those who caught South Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son’s recent concerto performances in Scotland, either with the BBC SSO or SCO. With the latter, she demonstrated a masterful command of Mozart – exquisite clarity, stylistically nuanced sensitivity and nimble precision – and it is with Mozart again, the complete sonatas, that she launches her new record deal with the French-based naïve label. Spread over six chronologically-arranged discs, the full spectrum of Mozart’s life is explored with unfolding fascination, from the probing, refreshing simplicity of the initial 1774 sonatas by an already masterful 18-year-old, to the more reflective twists of his final utterances of the late 1780s, and much in between. Yet the strongest message from Eum Son’s performances is Mozart’s natural, compulsive joie-de-vivre. She captures that natural genius with bewitching consistency and dizzying charm.”
“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.”
“The concerto is widely regarded as being one of the most technically challenging in the standard classical piano repertoire. Yeol Eum Son tackled it head on with a blend of tenacity and panache. The concerto presents many opportunities for virtuosic display. While Yeol Eum Son grabbed these opportunities with alacrity, this was no ostentatious display of pianist prowess. Rather, her playing was measured and contemplative, not least in the first movement cadenza where she controlled and shaped the shifting moods and nuances to mesmerising effect.”
“Son is an extraordinary soloist and an immensely expressive performer, drawing the audience in with every movement, from the intense, juddering chords to the glimmering crescendos. There is a real power to her performance that meant that the audience was feeling every note and emotion of the piece right along with her.”
“Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son played Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor, K.466, with light, fine-pointed energy and agile precision, the whole buoyed by an engaging musical spirit.“
“Performing Chopin Piano Concerto No.2, Yeol Eum Son had power and passion, fireworks and drama aplenty, but for me the true magic was in the music’s more introverted passages. The opening of the slow movement was exquisite, with both orchestra and pianist seeming to explore the inner reaches of the soul. This movement was all about the joy of the journey, with the arrival almost an afterthought.”
“A complete success… Yeol Eum Son gave a highly sensitive demonstration of her appreciation for contemporary repertoire, displaying incredible pianissimo on her instrument, which once again dazzled the almost full house.”
“Next came Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major – this demanding work requires extraordinary concentration and virtuosity from the soloist. Yeol Eum Son impressively proved that she has these qualities with her spirited interpretation. With almost tender touches of the keys, Yeol Eum elicits the slightest sounds from the instrument, only to reach into the keys again in the next moment. The result was an exciting reproduction at the highest level. Therefore, it is not surprising that the pianist is a popular artist in the large concert halls.“
“They were joined by the South Korean pianist, Yeol Eum Son, for Salonen’s 2007 three-movement Concerto. Written originally for the Israeli-American pianist Yefim Bronfman, it is consequently robust, physically intense and fiercely virtuosic. Eum Son had no problems making it her own, matching its muscular demands with a gracefulness that was mostly effective in the numerous conversations the soloist engages in with single instruments.”
“Son was astonishingly dextrous in Ravel’s one-handed dashes up and down the keyboard, but also balanced a granitic power with a sense of melting poetry, her solo passages exquisitely shaped and delivered with calm conviction.”
“…It is also a piece (Ravel for the Left Hand) that is very eloquent with the bass sonorities of the orchestra — double bassoon, bass clarinet and the string basses — as well as the lower notes of the keyboard. All of this was exquisitely clear in a wonderful performance by the soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra…”
“…this was a performance of Ravel’s Left-Hand Concerto of great strength, phenomenal (left-hand) technique and complete grasp of the Ravel sound-world. The rapport between herself and Tortelier was miraculous – and how fabulous were the double bassoon solos, so attractively phrased. But it was Son’s playing that took the breath away, dignified, fluent, creating the most melting of sounds from her Steinway, producing suave glissandi and wondrous pedal-free staccatos. She found, and relished, the jazz overtones of the piece, too, while the cadenza positively glowed…”
“Yeol Eum Son broke through the amazing harmony of Prokofiev again and again, proving an astonishing dexterity, which allowed to let off steam in endless cadences. The pianist even maintained a touch of Chopinean elegance – a touch only, otherwise the powerful virtuoso would certainly dominate this deluge of sound.”
“…this stunning performance of his 5th piano concerto with the orchestra led by Andrew Manze, the principal guest conductor, and Yeol Eum Son, the award-winning South Korean soloist, making her debut in Liverpool, was outstanding…Yeol Eum Son throughout demonstrated the technical excellence partnered with lyrical sensitivity that have made her one of the most sought-after concert pianists in a virtuoso performance that was much appreciated by the audience.”
“Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son made an explosion of energy with her performance”
“The pianist Yeol Eum Son’s expressive pedal work, spacious cadenzas and fearlessly fast articulation drew the ears forward to Beethoven’s first and second Piano Concertos, closing the gap between the two composers.”
“Yeol Eum Son broke through the amazing harmony of Prokofiev again and again, proving an astonishing dexterity, which allowed to let off steam in endless cadences. The pianist even maintained a touch of Chopinean elegance – a touch only, otherwise the powerful virtuoso would certainly dominate this deluge of sound.”
“Ihre Interpretation war subtil, in perfekt abgestimmtem Dialog mit dem Orchester – und passagenweise, wo es Mozart einforderte, virtuos. Ihre Zurückhaltung brachte die düsteren Farben dieses Konzerts in allen Schattierungen zur Geltung. Der knapp 30-jährige Mozart hat hier ein Musikstück geschaffen, in dem er sehr persönliche Gefühle wiedergibt, das Verhältnis zu seiner Umwelt darstellt und, wie gesagt wird, selbst geistige Fragen und Themen abhandelt. Dieses 1785 entstandene Konzert entstand offenbar in einer heftigen emotionalen Aufwallung innerhalb weniger Tage. Erstmals komponierte Mozart ein Klavierkonzert in Moll – und nahm damit die Tonart, die Düsterkeit und Dramatik des „Don Giovanni“ vorweg.”
Yeol Eum Son… played with a dazzling range of dynamics, patiently giving each musical idea a semi-improvisatory spontaneity… With the first piece [Ravel’s Valses Nobles et Sentimentales] she took the listener by the collar and never let go, ranging from wispy and mysterious to a murky haze of sound in the smoky final waltz… Her showmanship came to the fore in the final work, Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz No. 1, played with booming power and devilish ferocity in the cackling multi-trills and gossamer right-hand runs.
“The final toccata was dazzling, a preface to a simply phenomenal performance of Stravinsky’s Three Pieces from Petrushka. Son thunders the big, roof-raising stuff but interlaces it with crisp chords and single lines that get to the heart beneath the wood of Stravinsky’s tragic puppet. Her opening Gershwin was immensely likeable, too, laid-back but not without the necessary freedom of the right hand above the ragtime left. The encore, Moszkowski’s Etincelles (Sparks), a Horowitz favourite, was a perfect butterfly to conclude.”
“…a Chopin concert at the Aachen Musikhochschule, where the South Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son excelled…. The variations [in E major] on the song “Der Schweizerbub” passed splendidly and elegantly… A challenge for the pianist, who not only proved to be a consummate virtuoso, but interpreted every piece [24 Préludes op. 28] in a highly sensitive and often oppressively intense way….”
“The last was a dazzling tour de force [Stravinsky Three Movements from Petrushka], Yeol Eum finding that vital emotional connection with the music and physically embracing its raw energy and dynamic extremes with ferocious virtuosity. The encore – Moskowski’s effervescent Etincelles – was just as captivating, just as virtuosic.”
“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.”
“This evening’s concert is a sort of rehearsal with a beautiful discovery, the young pianist Yeol Eum Son, winner of the Tchaikovsky contest, in the unexpected Gershwin concerto. Jazz atmosphere and respect for the classical form for Gershwin’s Concerto in F for piano and orchestra of which the Korean pianist gives a playful and jubilant interpretation.”
“The Concerto’s Allegro reveals unbound seventh chords, becomes playful with syncopated chords and under Yeol Eum’s fingers never fails to link sincerity and lightness, sentiment and exaltation, eeriness and elegance. (…) The final Allegro gives the praise back to a virtuosic soloist, who slips melodies ‘à la Rachmaninov’ towards Lisztian soundscapes, keeping the humor in the piece. Well-deserved ovation for Yeol Eum Son, who offers Nikolai Kasputin’s Etude No. 7 Op. 40 as an encore – a piece as technical as it is languid.”